











. 









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I 



NOTES 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

I 



A CITIZEN OF MARYLAND. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

SHERMAN & CO., PRINTERS. 

1885. 






Copyright, 1885, by Lloyd D. Simpson. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction, 9 

CHAPTEK II. 
Jefferson's Political Animosity, 12 

CHAPTER III. 
His Aversion to Official Life, 16 

CHAPTER IV. 
Jefferson and Presidential Re-eligibility, 21 

CHAPTER V. 
Jefferson and Religion, 29 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Purchase of Louisiana, 40 

CHAPTER VII. 
Some Tergiversations, Self-contradictions, and Inconsistencies, 44 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Jefferson's#Vpprehensions of Monarchy, 56 

CHAPTER IX. 

Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence, 61 

CHAPTER X. 
Remarkable Political Theories, 72 

CHAPTER XL 
Are his "Ana" reliable? 86 

CHAPTER XII. 
Jefferson as Governor, in Time of War, 89 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. PAGE 

His Indirectness, 102 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Jefferson and Genet, 106 

CHAPTER XV. 
Jefferson as a Demagogue, • 114 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Jefferson and Burr, 118 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Jefferson's Slanders of Hamilton, 134 

CHAPTER XVII I. 
Jefferson and Washington, 146 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Jefferson's Opinion of Riots and Insurrections, 160 

CHAPTER XX. 
Some Evidence of his Insincerity, 163 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Jefferson and The French Revolution, 177 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Effects of His Life and Doctrines, 179 



NOTES ON THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



For obvious reasons, whatever pertains to Thomas Jef- 
ferson possesses an interest for all Americans. But he has 
exercised so prevalent and permanent an influence upon 
political thought and action in this Republic, that a study 
of his character must needs prove not only interesting, but 
profitable to its citizens. 

This study is, moreover, invested with a unique attraction 
by the fact that the character and career of no other prom- 
inent person of our Revolutionary era, have elicited such 
conflicting opinions as the character and career of Jefferson. 
On the one hand, he has been eulogized as a wise statesman, 
a man of extraordinary erudition — a profound philosopher. 
On the other, his statesmanship has been ridiculed, his 
learning pronounced limited as well as superficial, and his 
philosophy branded as empirical. Thousands admire and 
love him because they are convinced that he was a sincere 
friend of political equality ; many assert that he was a 
demagogue, feigning affection for the people, in order that 
he might use them for promoting his own aggrandizement. 
Some think he w r as happiest in retirement — that he 
accepted only such honors as were thrust upon him — and 

2 



10 NOTES ON 

those reluctantly ; others are persuaded that he was tor- 
mented by a consuming ambition, — that he thirsted for 
preferment, and was not very scrupulous as to the means 
which he used to obtain it. Some regard him as a simple- 
minded, ingenuous man; others characterize him as supple 
and crafty, capable of making himself " all things to all 
men," in order to accomplish his selfish purposes. Some 
describe him as gentle and amiable ; others declare that he 
was capable of intense malignity. One extols him as exem- 
plary in his private walk and conversation ; another offers 
jo prove that he stooped to repulsive infractions of the law 
of chastity. 

This conflict of opinion, it is believed, results mainly 
from three causes: 1. Mr. Jefferson was the leader of a 
political party, at a time when party spirit was violent. 
His partisans concealed his faults, magnified his merits, and 
ascribed to him virtues that he did not possess. His po- 
litical opponents, in their turn, decried him, exaggerating the 
defects of his nature, and charging him with ignoble actions 
upon insufficient evidence. 2. He held little direct com- 
munication with the people; while it was commonly under- 
stood that he was warmly attached to popular government, 
his views on specific measures of public policy, or his opin- 
ion respecting the doctrines held by any statesman were 
generally expressed, at first, only to a few trusted friends, 
whose province it was to consider them, and if they were 
approved, make them known to others. Some of these views 
and opinions were not communicated to the multitude. 
Some that were transmitted to the people were mutilated 
in their transmission : others, so transmitted, were distorted 
or colored by the personal theories or prejudices of those to 
whom they were originally imparted. 3. He not infre- 
quently employed ambiguous forms of expression. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 11 

The publication, in 1853, of Jefferson's confidential cor- 
respondence, his Ana and other productions of his, not 
before given to the world, has furnished all who will use 
them with data sufficient for forming a correct judgment 
concerning him and his whole career. No attempt to per- 
form a work so important and extensive has been made in 
the following notes; but it is hoped that they will throw 
light on some of his peculiar doctrines, and illustrate some 
traits of his character, that heretofore have been either too 
little known, or too much disregarded. 



12 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER IT. 



Jeffersox, though a " mild-mannered man," frequently 
employed acrimonious language respecting those who dif- 
fered from him politically. In his letter to Mr. Madison, 
dated December 28th, 1794, he styled the Senate " the 
Augean stable :" he designated the majority of that body 
as "his opponents," as " rnonocrats;" he declared that the 
Cincinnati were "lowering over the Constitution eter- 
nally;" he characterized the excise law of 1791 as "an 
infernal law;" he said the Government was "patient 
of the kicks and scoffs of our enemies," but rose " at a 
feather against our friends," to wit, the whiskey insurrec- 
tionists of Pennsylvania. The epithet "anglo-men," he 
frequently applies to the Federalists. He alludes to "the 
corrupt squadron " of Congress, " debauched " by the secre- 
tary of the Treasury. He declared that Hamilton believed 
in a monarchy " bottomed on corruption," — that the public 
funds were " a contrivance invented for the purposes of cor- 
ruption." His letter of March 29th, 1801, to Elbridge 
Gerry, contains numerous vindictive passages, in some of 
which his bitterness is enveloped in circumlocution — in 
others, it is but too clearly expressed. We cite some of 
them. " We may now say that the United States, south- 
wardly from New York, are as unanimous in the principles 
of '76 as they were in '76. The only difference is, that 
the leaders who remain behind are more numerous and 
bolder than the apostles of toryism in 1776. The reason 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 13 

is that we are now justly more tolerant than we could safely 
have been then." (Mark how ingeniously he endeavors to 
place upon prominent Federalists the stigma of toryism.) 
"A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest of the 
printers; they, like the clergy, live by the zeal they can 
kindle, and the schisms they can create." " The mild and 
simple principles of the Christian philosophy would produce 
too much calm, too much regularity of good, to extract 
from its disciples a support for a numerous priesthood, were 
they not to sophisticate it, ramify it, split it into hairs, and 
twist its texts till they cover the divine morality of its 
author with mysteries, and require a priesthood to explain 
them." "Your part of the Union, though as absolutely 
republican as ours, has drunk deeper of the delusion " (op- 
position to republicanism) " The aegis of govern- 
ment, and the temples of religion and of justice, have all 
been prostituted there, to toll us back to. the times when 
we burnt witches. The people will support you, notwith- 
standing the bowlings of the ravenous crew from whose 
jaws they are escaping." According to Jefferson, those 
opposed to Republicanism were " apostates," whose heads 
had been "shorn by the Harlot of England :" — "a faction 
of monocrats:" — the friends of Washington were "the 
satellites and sycophants" about the President — the publi- 
cations and newspapers of the Federalists were " The 
slanderous chronicles of Federalism " — the supporters of 
Hamilton were " votaries to the treasury," " the stock- 
jobbing herd,"— and the $20,000,000 of stock issued on 
the assumption of the state debts was "a pabulum thrown 
in " to this "stock-jobbing herd ;" — they who favored the 
assumption of the debts by the General Government and 
the funding of the debts thus assumed, together with the 
national debt, were "gamblers in these scenes;" the Feder- 



14 NOTES ON 

alists of Massachusetts were "venal traitors." Jefferson 
wrote that Hamilton's "career from the moment history 
could stoop to notice him," was "a tissue of machinations 
against the liberty of a country, which had not only received 
and fed him, but heaped its honors on his head" — that 
" the more debt Hamilton could rake up, the more plunder 
for his mercenaries." This curious paragraph occurs in one 
of his letters: "Washington naked would hare been sanctimo- 
niously reverenced, but enveloped in the rags of royalty, 
they can hardly be torn off without laceration." His wrath 
against those opposed to democracy waxed so hot, that he 
found no English words adequate to its expression — he 
must needs resort to the Greek : he calls the advocates of a 
strong government," " Energumenoi of royal ism." It is 
submitted that a man who could name his opponents " ener- 
gumenoi," must have been possessed by a fury of no 
common order. Had Jefferson applied this fearful epithet 
to Hamilton and Adams in their hearing, he might have 
produced upon them the same effect that Daniel O'Connell 
did upon the Billingsgate woman, when he styled her a 
paral lelopipedon . I n a letter dated August 1 4th, 1811, and 
addressed to General Dearborn of Massachusetts, Jefferson 
applauds El bridge Gerry, then the recently elected governor 
of that state, for removing Federalists from office, commend- 
ing the governor "for the rasping with which he rubbed 
down his bed of traitors." " Let them have justice," he 
adds, " and protection from violence, but no favor. Powers 
and pre-eminences conferred on them are daggers put into 
the hands of assassins, to be plunged in our bosoms the moment 
the thrust can go home to the heart." He further expresses 
to the general his apprehension that the Federalists, if they 
regain power, will resort to deportation and the guillotine. 
The actions and expressions of those engaged in a violent 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 15 

political contest should not be judged too harshly, but this 
letter written from the seclusion of Monticello, long after 
Jefferson had ceased all personal participation in the strife 
of contending parties, is a melancholy exhibition of political 
venom. 



10 NOTES OX 



CHAPTER III. 

HIS AVERSION TO OFFICIAL LIFE. 

In 1781, shortly after he resigned the governorship of 
Virginia, deeply chagrined by the strictures upon his man- 
agement of affairs, during the invasions of Arnold and 
General Tarleton, Jefferson wrote to a friend that " every 
fibre of his political ambition was eradicated," and that he 
would never return to public life. The next year, he ac- 
cepted the position of a commissioner to treat for peace 
with Great Britain. He, however, took no part in the 
negotiations; in fact did not quit the country, a provisional 
treaty having been signed before he could sail, by the other 
commissioners already in Europe. In June, 1783, he was 
chosen a delegate to Congress. In 1784 he was appointed 
to assist Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in nego- 
tiating treaties of commerce with various European States. 
Shortly after his arrival in Europe, in pursuance of this 
mission, he was appointed minister at the Court of Ver- 
sailles. It thus appears that, within a period of less than 
five years, after declaring his disgust at popular ingratitude 
and his determination never again to enter public life, he 
accepted four official positions. Before leaving France, 
which he did in 1789, he received from Mr. Madison a 
letter, asking whether he would accept an appointment at 
home. He replied that he desired retirement ; that all his 
appointments to office had been contrary to his wishes, and 
that he had resigned the French mission in order " to re- 
sume his agricultural pursuits, and the enjoyment of total 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 17 

seclusion and rest." He readied Monticello on December 
23d, 1789. On March 1st, 1790, he again quitted his home 
for the purpose of assuming the office of Secretary of State 
under Washington, having pursued agriculture and enjoyed 
seclusion and rest for two months and eight days. He held 
that position till the expiration of Washington's first term, 
and took the same place under Washington's second admin- 
istration. In his letter of December 31st, 1793, announc- 
ing ro the President his resignation of office, Jefferson 
writes, " My propensity to retirement is becoming daily 
more and more irresistible." On December 28th, 1794, he 
writes Mr. Madison, " I would not give up my own retire- 
ment for the empire of the universe." In his letter to Mr. 
Madison of April 27th, 1795, he repeats his determination 
to remain in private life, assigning as reasons therefor, " My 
health is entirely broken down, . . . my age requires that 
1 should place my affairs in a clear state, . . . and above 
all, the delights I feel in the society of my family and in 
agricultural pursuits;" he assures Mr. Madison that the 
writer is not to be reasoned out of his resolution, and ap- 
parently, with the view of preventing all attempts in that 
direction, he adds, " The question is forever closed with me." 
On June 19th, 1796, he advised General Washington 
that he was devoting himself to the cultivation of " lucerne, 
pease and potatoes," and took no concern in politics and 
public measures. In October of the same year, Mr. Jeffer- 
son, notwithstanding his lack of interest in politics, was 
chosen Vice-President of the United States. He doubt- 
less declined the proffered dignity. They who entertain 
that idea have a very erroneous conception of Mr. Jeffer- 
son's character. He was not the man to disregard the call 
of his country. A few weeks after the news of his election 
was confirmed, he left Monticello, casting, we may well be- 



18 NOTES ON 

lieve, "many a longing, lingering look behind," upon his 
" lucerne, pease and potatoes," and journeyed to Philadel- 
phia, then the seat of the Federal Government, where he 
was inducted into the office of Vice-President. While stili 
holding this position, the Presidential election of 1800 took 
place. When the electoral votes were counted, it appeared 
that Mr. Jefferson and Aaron Burr had received the same 
number. There was, consequently, no choice by the Elec- 
toral College, and the duty of choosing a President was 
devolved upon the House of Representatives. Into the 
long and bitter contest that ensued, Mr. Jefferson warmly 
entered, seemingly forgetful of the charms of retirement in 
his zeal for the success of the great party with which he 
was now identified. 

The contest, as is well known, resulted in the choice of 
" the sage of Monticello," who thereupon took up his resi- 
dence in the White House. In the spring of 1804, he com- 
municated to Mr. Page the fact that he was looking for- 
ward to " domestic comfort," at the expiration of his official 
term. But, re-elected President in the autumn of that 
year, his desire to promote the welfare of his fellow-citi- 
zens, from whom he could withhold nothing in his power 
to grant, impelled him again to postpone the coveted enjoy- 
ment of domestic comfort. Yet the old feeling was strong 
upon him. Though crowned with honors and enshrined in 
the hearts of his countrymen, he yearned for the seclusion 
of his rural home. That this is true, we know from a letter 
written shortly after his re-election to Elbridge Gerry. In 
it the President states that his great desire had " been to 
retire at the end of the present term to a life of tranquility, 
and it was my decided purpose when I entered into office." 
It thus appears that he not only desired, but had purposed 
retirement. Twice in the letter he expresses the ever-re- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 19 

curring wish " to enjoy my family, my farm and my books." 
He did not, however, selfishly resign, as many men with 
his intense longing for retirement, would have done. He 
conceived that the exigencies of the time demanded his con- 
tinuance "at the helm," and rightly concluding that per- 
sonal feelings must be disregarded when national interests 
are at stake, he bore, without a murmur, four years longer, 
his painful separation from the beloved objects above men- 
tioned. 

The example of Mr. Jefferson in this regard is com- 
mended to the youth of the country. His devotion to pub- 
lic duty was as rare as it was admirable. Quite unfitted, 
as he intimates, to brave the storms which all, who then em- 
barked on the sea of American politics, would inevitably 
encounter, he nevertheless, again and again, at the call of 
his country, tried that tempestuous sea. Though feeling an 
aversion to the duties of office so strong, that he character- 
izes the discharge of some of them as a "martyrdom," he 
twelve times yielded to the importunities of the people 
when they demanded his services. Delighting in agricul- 
tural pursuits, ever longing for the quiet and seclusion of 
his pleasant home; harassed by a propensity for retirement, 
which, as he declared, became at times irresistible; so pro- 
foundly interested in " lucerne, pease and potatoes," that 
neither the lapse of time, nor protracted absence, nor affairs 
of state, caused him to forget those useful vegetables, he yet 
remained in public life, with brief intervals, for a period 
of forty years. Behold in Jefferson a man whose strong 
patriotism subdued and held in bondage his cherished aims 
and desires. The envious or the hostile might indeed ac- 
cuse him of vacillation, or hint at insincerity, because he 
several times accepted office after having twice expressed 
his fixed determination never again to do so, but such 



2Q NOTES ON 



frivolous charges and insinuations were unheard or un- 
heeded, so absorbed was he in the great work of saving 
our republican institutions from the assaults of the 
Federalists. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 21 



CHAPTER IV. 

JEFFERSON AND PRESIDENTIAL RE-ELIGIBILITY. 

On November 3d, 1787, Mr. Jefferson, then in Paris, in 
a letter to John Adams, expresses strong disapprobation of 
the re-eligibility of the President, permitted by the new 
Constitution. He writes : "Once in office and possessing 
the military force of the Union, . . he would not be 
easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to 
withdraw their votes from him." . . " I wish at the 
end of the four years they had made him forever in- 
eligible a second time." In March, 1789, he writes to F. 
Hopkinson : " Since the thing (Constitution) has been 
established, I would wish it not to be altered during the 
life of our great leader, who alone, by the authority of his 
name and the confidence reposed in his perfect integrity, is 
fully qualified to put the new Government so under way as 
to secure it against the efforts of opposition," but hopes 
the Constitution will be corrected the moment " we can no 
longer have the same name at the helm." We can well 
understand how the pre-eminent services rendered to his 
country by Washington might induce Mr. Jefferson to 
waive his opposition to re-eligibility in the case of that 
"great leader," but in view of his letter to Mr. Adams, his 
willingness to have Washington continuously re-elected for 
life, is somewhat surprising. It has not escaped observa- 
tion that when he expressed this willingness, Washington 
was President-elect, that Jefferson was then anxious to be 
re-called from France, that lie soon returned to the United 



22 NOTES ON 

States, and that in less than two months after reaching 
home, he had received and accepted the appointment of Sec- 
retary of State. It will be noted, that in the first letter the 
writer's estimate of the President's power is very different 
from the estimate placed upon it in the second. In the 
former, he apprehended that the Chief Executive will with 
difficulty be "dethroned, even if the people withdraw their 
votes from him." In the latter, he doubts whether any 
President save Washington can sustain the new Govern- 
ment until it gets well under way. In November, 1787, 
he fears the powers and privileges conferred by the Consti- 
tution upon the President will enable whoever is chosen, to 
perpetuate his authority in defiance of law and the will of 
the people. In March, 1789, he thinks that during the 
early days of the Republic, there will probably be but one 
man in the nation strong enough to retain the office of 
President until the expiration of his constitutional term. 
The year 1807 witnessed a further change in his views, 
either as to the constitutional powers of the President, or as 
to the influence of Washington. We quote from Mr. Jef- 
ferson's notes in the fifth volume of Marshall's Life oj 
Washington, published in that year: "I am satisfied that 
Washington had no wish to perpetuate his authority ; but 
he who supposes it was practicable, had he wished it, 
knows nothing of the spirit of America." Here, far 
from being apprehensive of the Chief Magistrate's power 
to perpetuate his authority beyond his lawful term of office, 
Jefferson scouts the idea that even " our great leader," with 
his unparalleled popularity and the weight of his great 
name, could have done so. 

We have mentioned Jefferson's hope respecting the cor- 
rection of the Constitution. The earnestness with which 
that hope was expressed warranted the expectation that he 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 23 

who expressed it would immediately, upon Washington's 
retirement, endeavor to effect the correction. But, so far 
as known, he made no movement in that direction. Had 
rising visions of his own first and second terms in the new 
executive mansion, to be erected on the banks of the Poto- 
mac, already concealed from his view the rocks and shoals 
of re-eligibility ? The world will never know ; but neither 
then, nor at any subsequent time, did his hope ripen into 
action. He lived many years after Washington quitted 
office; he had ample leisure; he obtained extraordinary 
influence over his fellow-countrymen; he suggested and 
aided to secure the adoption of several amendments of the 
Constitution, but sank into the grave without so much as 
publicly proposing the amendment, deemed by him so vitally 
important that he hoped it would be made the moment Wash- 
ington abandoned the helm. Not only did he make no at- 
tempt to secure that amendment, which might indeed have 
been a difficult task, but he deliberately violated the doctrine 
that he had early enunciated and strongly advocated — he 
himself accepted a re-election. Apparently conscious that 
some explanation of this action was due to those familiar with 
his oft-expressed opinion, he writes, " I sincerely regret 
that the unbounded calumnies of the Federal party have 
obliged me to throw myself on the verdict of my country 
for trial." The excuse here offered for his dereliction seems 
worse than the fault. He seeks to justify his departure 
from his own standard of good government by a consider- 
ation wholly personal. By his own admission, he incon- 
sistently consented to a re-election, not because the public 
welfare demanded it, or because the importunities of his 
friends overcame his scruples, but for the weighty reason 
that his political opponents calumniated him. One of his 
biographers, commenting upon this proceeding, writes, 



24 \oti> ojs 

"How much of real glory he lust by missing this oppor-' 
tunity of putting the seal of sincerity and the test of^eon- 
sistency on his original professions, can only be estimated by 
a full consideration of the difficulty attending the sacrifice 
of ambition to principle." Having transgressed himself, he 
could hardly attempt to check the friends who followed his 
example. He witnessed the re-election and inauguration 
of Mr. Madison and of Mr. Monroe without a word of dis- 
approbation. On December 10th, 1 807, he declined a third 
election, stating his main reason therefor as follows: "I 
should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the 
sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should 
furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second 
term of office." 

On September 20th, 1813, he writes " I prefer the Presi- 
dential term of four years to that of seven years, which I 
at first suggested, annexing to it, however, ineligibility for 
ever after, and I wish it were now annexed to the second 
quadrennial election of President." In his autobiography, 
dated January 6th, 1821, we find him preferring to a seven 
years term " the present practice of allowing a continuance 
for eight years, to be dropped at half way of the term, 
making that a period of probation." In his Ana, under 
the year 1792, there is a passage, which by implication, 
favors a term q£ seven years, with ineligibility for seven 
years thereafter. 

To recapitulate : Mr. Jefferson originally suggested that 
presidential incumbency should be limited to a single term 
of seven years. He next favored a single term of four years. 

Scarcely fifteen months had elapsed, when he desired 
Washington's continuous re-election during life, but hoped 
the provision for a single term of four years would be in- 
corporated in the Constitution, as soon as practicable after 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 25 

Washington's retirement. In 1792, he favors a terra of 
seven years, to be followed by a seven years interval of in- 
eligibility. His next known opinion on the subject, is 
found in the letters declining a third election. In these he 
makes no mention of the evils of re-eligibility, indirectly 
favors two successive terms of four years each, mildly dis- 
approves three successive elections, and says nothing of 
eligibility after an interval. In 1813, bidding a final adieu 
to his first choice — a seven years term, he prefers a presi- 
dential term of four years and wishes ineligibility " annexed 
to the second quadrennial election," by a change in the 
fundamental law. Finally, in 1821, having abandoned, as 
it seems, either the wish or the hope of securing such an 
amendment of the Constitution as he had suggested, he sets 
the seal of his approbation upon the practice of " allowing 
a continuance for eight years, with a liability to be dropped 
at half-way of the term" — as he curiously expresses it. 
Here we have a menu of opinion's so varied as to suit all 
tastes. How well Mr. Jefferson's actions tallied with his 
professed opinions on the question of re-eligibility, is written 
in the annals of the nation. He, as has been intimated, 
expressed fears that re-eligibility would prove detrimental 
to the country. Should his worst apprehensions in regard 
to its evil effects be realized, should the presidency be 
transformed by re-eligibility into an office for life, as he 
asserted it would be, upon himself must rest the chief, if not 
the sole responsibility for this and all other ills springing 
from the same source. For, although the re-election of the 
president is theoretically permitted by the Constitution, it 
became an actuality through the agency of Mr. Jefferson 
and those whose political movements he controlled. The 
acceptance, in immediate succession, of a second term by 
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, firmly established the prac- 

3 



26 NOTES ON 

tice of re-electing a president, before the expiration of his 
first term. It may he safely assumed that neither Mr. 
Madison nor Mr. Monroe would have consented to a re- 
election had Mr. Jefferson refused it, and advised them to 
follow his example, for in matters political, he was their 
" guide, philosopher, and friend." Xor can the second 
election of Washington be pleaded as a precedent, because 
his acceptance thereof was urged in such a manner and for 
such reasons that he could scarcely refuse, how strong 
soever his reluctance ; and the condition of affairs was, at 
the time, quite exceptional. On the other hand, s'hould 
re-eligibility continue as harmless as it has shown itself to 
be, during the past century, the failure of Mr. Jefferson's 
repeated prognostications of its mischievous results must 
greatly diminish our estimate of his political sagacity. But 
whether re-eligibility yield good or evil fruits, whether 
the forebodings of Mr. Jefferson were groundless or not, 
his own letters and the pages of history clearly show that 
he gave his example and his great influence in support of 
a governmental principle, which he had often reprobated 
as pernicious, so pernicious that he assured a friend it 
"would produce cruel distress in our country." 

Mr. Jefferson has been much commended for refusing to 
be President for more than two terms. Let us briefly ex- 
amine the history and incidents of this refusal. 

1. When he styles Washington's retirement at the ex- 
piration of his second term a " sound precedent," he indi- 
rectly admits the propriety of a second term ; this admission, 
and his own acceptance of a re-election, while in the office 
of President, may be fairly regarded as an abandonment of 
his original opinion on the question of Presidential re- 
eligibility — which position was that the Executive should 
" forever be ineligible a second time." When an abandon- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 27 

ment of one's professed convictions secures continued honor 
and emoluments, it is scarcely a ground for commenda- 
tion. 

2. Mr. Jefferson's disapproval of a third term is not very 
strongly expressed. His language is : "I should unwill- 
ingly be the person who . . . should furnish the first 
example of a prolongation." Observe, he does not abso- 
lutely refuse a third election — not at all. He but declares his 
reluctance to be the first person who should disregard the 
precedent set by Washington. He indicates no calamities 
that would likely result from a third term. He does not 
even state his own opinion on the subject. 

3. He adduces as additional reasons for declining, the 
burdens and infirmities of increasing years, and his strong 
desire to enjoy the repose of private life. 

4. The evils to be apprehended from the re-eligibility of 
an actual incumbent are the same whether re-eligible for 
one or for two terms. "Once in office and possessed of the 
military force of the Union, he would not be easily de- 
throned," are Mr. Jefferson's own words. The danger of 
re-eligibility, if there be any such danger, is that the in- 
cumbent will employ his immense patronage and the mili- 
tary forces, of which he is commander-in-chief, to secure 
his re-election. This danger manifestly begins as soon as 
he has grasped the reins of power. 

5. The address of the Vermont Legislature, in which 
Mr. Jefferson is asked to serve a third term, was dated 
November 5th, 1806, and was duly received. His reply 
thereto, from which we have quoted, stating his unwilling- 
ness, was written December 10th, 1807, more than a year 
afterwards. In the interim, he had received and answered 
a communication from the Vermont Legislature upon 
another subject. Considering this fact, his guarded Ian- 



28 NOTES ox 

guage, and his delay in replying to the address, we may 
not uncharitably suppose that when he received the same, 
he had not decided to retire at the expiration of the current 
term ; that for some time after the address reached him he 
was not unwilling to be re-elected ; that he was not impelled 
to refuse by fears that a third term would imperil our free 
institutions ; that before determining to retire he had well 
pondered the advantages and disadvantages of the movement, 
as well as carefully considered the probabilities of success in 
the ensuing Presidential campaign. Indeed, a gentleman 
of distinction, formerly United States Senator, who has 
given the subject attention, believes that Mr. Jefferson's 
letter in answer to the address was not penned until, by 
diligent inquiry, he had satisfied himself that his re-election 
was by no means certain. This belief derives some support 
from the fact, that about the time he communicated to the 
Vermont Legislature his determination not to accept a third 
term, he wrote several communications of like tenor to 
other parties. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 29 



CHAPTER V. 

JEFFERSON AND RELIGION. 

Mr. Jefferson's skepticism was known to some and 
suspected by many of his contemporaries, but the nature 
and scope of that skepticism were only matters of conjecture 
until the publication of his private correspondence. This 
correspondence, and the investigations which resulted from 
its being made public seem to show that he was a radical, 
uncompromising, and sometimes bitter infidel ; that he had 
little sympathy, and perhaps less respect for any form of 
religious faith. 

He was the friendly associate of scoffers and unbelievers, 
both native and foreign born, among whom may be men- 
tioned the scurrilous Paine, Condorcet, Cabanis, General 
Dearborn and Mr. Freneau. The National Gazette, his 
personal and political organ, almost entirely under his con- 
trol, vilified clergymen and mocked at religion. 

In his letters, he assails Presbyterian ism, characterizes 
"the five points of Calvin" as "blasphemous absurdity," 
and rails at the theology of the great Genevan doctor as 
follows: "It would be more pardonable to believe in no 
God, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of 
Calvin." He styles Presbyterians the " loyalists of our 
country." He madly compares them to the Jesuits, and in 
a paroxysm of folly, he pronounces Calvin an atheist. 

He writes : " The metaphysical absurdities of Athanasius, 
of Loyola, and of Calvin are mere relapses into polytheism, 
differing from Paganism only in being more unintelligible." 



30 NOTES ON 

He vehemently attacks Trinitarians and the doctrine of 
the Trinity. In one letter, he thus expresses himself: "I 
would as soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls of Bed- 
lam to sound understanding, as to inculcate reason into that 
of an Athanasian ; " in another to James Smith, is found 
the following : " Nor was the unity of the Supreme Being 
ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but 
by the sword of civil government, wielded at the will of 
the fanatic Athanasius.* The hocus-pocus phantasm of a 
God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, 
had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and 
thousands of martyrs." They, who witnessed only the calm 
amenity that Jefferson almost invariably displayed to those 
who casually met him, little suspected that within his 
bosom there lurked such venom. In the same letter, writ- 
ten December 8th, 1822, he says: U I confidently expect 
that the present generation will see Unitarianism become 
the general religion of the United States." 

While discrediting all the Holy Scriptures, he singles 
out certain portions and statements found in them as 
specially objectionable. In a letter dated January 17th, 
1825, to General Smith, he considers the Apocalypse 
•• merely a* the ravings of a maniac — no more worthy or 
capable of explanation than the incoherent cries of our 
nightly dreams." In that letter, or in one written about 
the same time, he predicts " The day will come when the 
mystical generation of Jesus in the womb of a virgin, by 
the Supreme Being as his father, will be classed with the 
generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Having 
branded the venerable exile of Patmos :i< a maniac, he 

• The sword of civil government was wielded not for Athanasius, 
but against him. He was four times banished from Alexandria, and 
once saved himself from violence by voluntary exile. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 31 

seeks to disparage the Epistles, labors and preaching of St. 
Paul, by reprobating hira as the " Coryphaeus of the band 
of dupes and robbers" who endeavored to propagate im- 
postures concerning Christ. We think no one, believer or 
infidel, except Jefferson, has ever imputed stupidity and in- 
sincerity to the great Apostle of the Gentiles. In his 
famous letter to Dr. Rush respecting religious beliefs, he 
attempts to impeach the credibility of the four Gospels by 
alleging, that they who undertook to preserve the doctrines 
of Christ " wrote from memory, and not till long after the 
transactions had passed ;" that Jesus perished at the age of 
thirty-three, before he had completed his system; that " the 
doctrines which he really delivered were defective as a 
whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have 
come to us mutilated, misstated and often unintelligible." 
Yet, with pretended zeal for what he is pleased to term the 
" simple" doctrines of Christ, he writes to Timothy Pick- 
ering : " The religion-builders have so distorted and de- 
formed the doctrines of Jesus — so muffled them in mysti- 
cisms, fancies and falsehoods ; have caricatured them into 
forms so monstrous and inconceivable as to shock reason- 
able thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive 
them rashly to pronounce its founder an impostor." 

If the statements respecting the doctrines of Christ, made 
in the letter to Dr. Rush, are correct, the charges found in 
the letter to Mr. Pickering cannot be sustained. If we 
have only mutilated, misstated, and unintelligible fragments 
of what Jesus delivered, it is manifestly impossible for 
"us" to know what are the doctrines really taught by the 
Son of Mary, and consequently impossible to determine 
whether they have or have not been " distorted and de- 
formed." It is evident that Jefferson's antipathy to " re- 
ligion-builders" induced him to make absurd and contra- 



32 NOTES ON 

dictory allegations against them, and the foundations of their 
faith. Equally absurd, and more ridiculous, when con- 
trasted with the citations from the Rush letter, is a certain 
declaration of Jefferson concerning his own religious views. 
It runs thus: "It is not to be understood that I am with 
Christ in all his doctrines. I am a materialist. He takes 
the side of spiritualism." The self-esteem here apparent, 
it may be remarked, is quite Jeffersonian. 

In a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, dated August 10th, 
1787, Jefferson thus instructs his young relative: "Your 
own reason is the only oracle given you by Heaven, and 
you are answerable, not for the tightness, but uprightness 
of its decision. Read the Bible, then, as you would Livy 
or Tacitus. . . . The New Testament is a history of a per- 
sonage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pre- 
tensions, (1) of those who say he was begotten by God, born 
of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at 
will, and ascended bodily to Heaven; and, (2) of those 
who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevo- 
lent heart, and enthusiastic mind, who set out without pre- 
tensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was 
punished capitally for sedition. . . . Question with boldness 
even the existence of a God ; because, if there be one, he 
must more approve of the homage of reason than that of 
blindfolded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry 
by any fear of consequences. If it ends in the belief that 
there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the 
comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and in the 
love of others which it will procure you. If you find 
reason to believe that there is a God, a consciousness that 
you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will 
be a vast additional incitement." 

From contempt for the oracles of Christianity and their 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 33 

authors, to the abuse of its divine founder the transition is 
easy. It is, therefore, uot surprising to find Jefferson, in a 
letter to Dr. Rush, charging the Saviour with " evasions, 
sophisms, misconstructions, and misapplications of scraps 
of the prophets/' In keeping with this, is his reply to his 
Italian friend (Mazzei), who called his attention to the dilapi- 
dated condition of a church in Virginia. " It is good 
enough," observed Jefferson, " for one who was born in a 
manger." 

He believed the prevalent forms of the Christian religion 
to be dangerous to the Republic. On November 2d, 1822, 
he wrote to Dr. Cooper : " The atmosphere of our country 
is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud of fan- 
aticism, — lighter in some places, denser in others, but too 
heavy in all." His friend, General Dearborn, of Massa- 
chusetts, whom he appointed Secretary of War, declared 
that so long as our Christian temples stood " we could not 
hope for good order or good government." 

Jefferson traduced ministers and members of Christian 
churches. Writing to the Dr. Cooper above mentioned, he 
thus ridicules some pious women of his own State : " In our 
Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the 
women. They have their night meetings and praying par- 
ties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a 
henpecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their 
love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal as their mod- 
esty would permit them to use to a mere earthly lover." 
But his hottest indignation is reserved for the ministers. 
His wrath against these "impious dogmatists," these "false 
shepherds," these "mere usurpers of the Christian name," 
transports him beyond the bounds of reason and decorum. 
" My opinion is," he writes, " that there would never have 
been an infidel if there had never been a priest." He fairly 



34 NOTES (l.\ 

raves at the " Parishes, the Ogdens," and other clergymen 
of New England, whom he styles "Marats, Dantons, and 
Robespieres." Finally, in a letter to Dr. Rush, he includes 
all clergymen in one sweeping denunciation, by declaring 
that " the riddle of all priesthoods is solved in four words 
— ' Ubipanis, ibi Deus.' " When it is remembered that in 
the Christian ministry, from the date of its institution to 
the time of Jefferson, there were always men of great in- 
tellect, sound reason, disinterested benevolence, and unsul- 
lied character, wholly devoted to the service of their 
Heavenly King, and the benefaction of their fellow- men, 
and that Jefferson could not have been ignorant of this 
thing, his declaration just above quoted must be pronounced 
not only untrue, but wilfully malicious. Here, as in his 
attitude towards Saint Paul, he stands alone. Not even 
the " grinning skeleton " of France, in his fiercest onslaughts 
upon the founder of Christianity, ventured to stigmatize as 
mercenary hypocrites the pure and holy men, who have 
sacrificed at her altars. 

In further illustration of Mr. Jefferson's religious opin- 
ions, it may be stated that in founding the University of 
Virginia, of which he claimed to be the "father," no pro- 
vision was made for a school, or even a professorship of 
divinity ; that he classed the various forms of Christian be- 
lief under the one head of "fanaticism;" that he charac- 
terized them all, Quakerism and Unitarianism excepted, as 
" dreams of the night ;" that he attempted to maintain that 
Christianity was not a part of the Common Law of Eng- 
land, in the face of a line of judicial decisions, unbroken, 
we believe, down to the time at which he wrote, and in 
opposition to Lord Keeper Finch, Wingate, Shepherd, 
author of the Touchstone, Lord Hale, Wood, Blackstone, 
Lord Mansfield, and other eminent jurists. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 35 

Was Jefferson an atheist? In order to show his belief in 
a Supreme Being, his best biographer, Mr. Randall, quotes 
from his inaugural addresses and his messages, certain phrases 
wherein he invokes the Deity. But these were public docu- 
ments, and it need not be said to those, who have impar- 
tially studied the life and character of Jefferson, that his 
public utterances are by no means conclusive evidence of 
his real opinions. If the maxim " noseitur a sociis" be 
applied to him, it raises a presumption of his atheism. 
Freneau, his protege, eulogist, and champion flouted a 
belief in Providence. His cherished friend, General Dear- 
born, as stated above, desired the demolition of the temples of 
God. His French friend, Cabanis, taught that "the moral 
affections and intellectual faculties reside in the nerves;" 
that there is no distinction between the physical and the 
moral nature, for "the moral faculties have their origin in 
the physical." In other words, man is like the beasts that 
perish ; when the physical body dies all is dead — there is 
no immortality — no future. Condorcet, another and more 
intimate French friend, declared that " to deny God is the 
sublime of philosophy." Jefferson's writings strengthens 
the presumption raised by his associates. In his notes on 
Virginia, he says " It does me no harm for my neighbor 
to say there are twenty Gods or no God ; it does not break 
my bones." In one of the passages cited from his letter to 
his nephew, he intimates that a belief in God is of little 
importance, since they who do not believe will find other 
incentives to virtue. And the passage, " Question with 
boldness even the existence of a God, because if there be 
one," etc., may be fairly interpreted to imply a doubt, if 
not a disbelief in such existence. He has not, we think, 
left on record any clear expression of his trust in an over- 
ruling Providence. His flippant use of such phrases as 



36 NOTES ON 

"by the God that made me" will scarcely be adduced as 
evidence of his faith in a personal Deity. During his last 
hours, he declined all religious converse, and gave no sign 
of a belief in a future state. Mr. Parton, in his labored 
eulogy, facetiously styled a life of Jefferson, says " his re- 
ligion was the supreme decency, the highest etiquette, with 
the addition of bell-ringing and merry Christmas." If this 
description of his religion by one of his warmest admirers 
be correct, Jefferson was certainly an atheist. 

Let us now turn for a moment from this melange of 
conceit, malevolence, and blasphemy to the life and writings 
of Benjamin Franklin, a skeptic indeed, but one whose 
skepticism we can respect, if not approve. He accords to 
Christianity the deference due to a religion that has claims 
to a superhuman origin, that numbers among its votaries 
many of the wisest and best of our fellow-creatures, that, 
having for eighteen hundred years withstood the assaults of 
its enemies, is now enshrined in the hearts of millions. In 
November 1764, when about to depart for Europe, he 
wrote to his daughter, " Go constantly to church, no matter 
who preaches; I wish you would never miss the prayer- 
days." He advised Paine to burn the Age of Reason, 
before it was seen by any one else; — "not to unchain the 
tiger." " If," added he, " men are so wicked with religion, 
what would they be without it?" He publicly announced 
the belief that " God governs in the affairs of men." He 
proposed prayer in the Constitutional Convention. Though 
he denied the divinity of Jesus, he obeyed his precepts. He 
neither derided nor denounced professing Christians, lay or 
clerical. It would have been impossible for him to apply 
to Saint Paul the epithets " dupe and robber," or to charge 
all ministers of religion with insincerity. He endeavored to 
live and die as Christians pray that they may live and die, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 37 

" in perfect charity with all men." What a contrast is here 
between the real philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, and the 
pseudo sage of Monticello ! 

Mr. Randall informs ns that Jefferson contributed to the 
support of the Protestant Episcopal Church, regularly at- 
tended the same, made the responses in the services, and 
was married and buried by its forms. Mr. Randall, no 
doubt, wishes his readers to infer from these facts that Jeffer- 
son's infidelity was not very pronounced ; that he had not 
the strong aversion to religion, that his enemies imputed to 
him. And such inferences are indeed warranted by these 
facts, standing alone; but their importance can only be de- 
termined by considering them in the light of Mr. Jefferson's 
declarations, and of all his other acts. He must have de- 
spised the clergymen who officiated at the church which he 
attended, since all clergymen were included in his general 
denunciation of them. It is hard to believe that he respected 
one of those religions that he asserted to be fanaticisms. It 
is most improbable that he cherished friendly feelings for 
the Episcopal, as distinguished from other Christian churches, 
for he had been her most active opponent in the contest 
which resulted in the overthrow of her supremacy and the 
loss of her property in Virginia. It is then reasonable to 
conclude that his subsequent attendance at her service was 
prompted by other than religious motives. He was prob- 
ably, somewhat influenced in this action by the wishes of 
his family, by the "supreme decency" mentioned by Mr. 
Parton, and by a desire to avoid offending the prejudices of 
his neighbors. But there must have been an incentive 
stronger than any of these, to induce him not only to endure, 
but to aid that for which he had expressed emphatic con- 
tempt, and that incentive may be found in his political 
opinions and career. Mr. Jefferson was a Democrat; he pro- 



38 NOTES ON 

fessed strong confidence in the purity and wisdom of the 
masses of the people. He knew full well that a great ma- 
jority of them favored the Christian religion, and in order to 
win and retain their support, which was essential to secure 
the triumph of himself and his party, he must exhibit some 
regard for Christian churches and their ordinances. He 
therefore not only abstained from any overt attack upon re- 
ligion, but attended the Episcopal Church and contributed 
to its maintenance. 

It may have been not his religious convictions or the 
voice of conscience, but the voice of the people, regarded 
by Jefferson as the voice of God, that summoned him to 
the temples of the Most High. If he attended church 
services in early life, it was possibly because others did so, 
or because he hoped to promote thereby his own advance- 
ment. His attendance, in later years, may have resulted 
from habit, from a desire to disprove the allegations of his 
enemies as to his infidelity, or above all, from a wish 
to perpetuate the ascendancy of his party and of his party 
associates. While manifesting this outward deference to 
religion, he was writing to his friends private letters, filled 
with "hatred, malice and all uneharitableness" towards 
Christians and the prevalent forms of Christian faith. His 
course in this matter brings out in strong relief his dupli- 
city, the great blemish in his character. In a number of 
his letters derogatory to Christians, are found injunctions of 
secrecy. Thus, while charging clergymen with imposture, 
he was himself something very like an impostor. While 
branding others as fanatics, he was himself a bigot. This 
review of Jefferson's opinions and treatment of religious 
subjects, may be fitly concluded by citing his revolting allu- 
sion to HeaVen, penned at Paris, September 30th, 1785, and 
found in his works, vol. 1, page 321. It is as follow^ : 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 39 

" Voltaire's description of France is a true picture of that 
country, to which they say we shall pass hereafter, and 
where we are to see God and his angels in splendor, and 
crowds of the damned trampled under their feet" 



40 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 

Mr. Jefferson has been lauded for the acquisition of 
Louisiana. The purchase of that territory has certainly 
been most advantageous to the United States, but it may be 
doubted whether Jefferson deserves much commendation 
for the part he took in the transaction. It is true he 
favored and aided the acquisition, but he believed it to be 
unconstitutional. This fact is established beyond all ques- 
tion by his letters to Mr. Madison, to Levi Lincoln, to W. 
C. Nicholas, and to Mr. Breckenridge, in regard to the 
newly-acquired territory. Writing to the gentleman last 
mentioned, August 12th, 1803, he says: " The Constitu- 
tion made no provision for our holding foreign territory, 
still less for incorporating foreign territory into our Union. 
The Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence, which so 
much advances the good of their country, have done an act 
beyond the Constitution." This is sufficiently explicit. 
Other citations would be superfluous. Mr. Nicholas en- 
deavored to convince Jefferson that the purchase was con- 
stitutional, but he refused to be convinced, and insisted that 
he had violated the Constitution. He justified his unlaw- 
ful action by adverting to the great benefits likely to result 
from it, and urged members of Congress to vote the neces- 
sary appropriation for the same reason. He said the un- 
constitutional purchase of Louisiana might be compared to 
the illegal investment of his ward's money by a guardian, 
when such investment was clearly advantageous to tl^e 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 41 

former. When the ward attained his majority, the guardian 
could say to him : " Tin's purchase was undoubtedly illegal. 
You have a right to repudiate it and ruin me, but I was 
prompted to make it by my desire to benefit you." Jeffer- 
son was confident the people would endorse the unauthor- 
ized acquisition, by voting an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion. He prepared several drafts of what he deemed a 
-uitable amendment, and submitted them to some of his 
friends. In a letter to Levi Lincoln he writes : " I quote 
this (the amendment proposed), observing that the less that 
is said about any constitutional difficulty the better, and that 
it will be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary in 
silence." He appears to have had two reasons for this ex- 
traordinary injunction of silence : the fear that his opinion 
as to the unconstitutionality of the measure might induce 
some members of Congress to vote against it, and the fear 
that France, upon learning of constitutional difficulties, 
might repudiate the contract. In his message to Congress, 
announcing the purchase, Jefferson made no mention of an 
amendment for the purpose of rendering it, constitutional — 
no such amendment was ever adopted, or proposed by Con- 
gress, or by State legislatures. One can imagine an 
emergency, in which the Executive might be warranted in 
disregarding some provision of the Constitution, in order to 
-a ve the State ; — salus populi, suprema lex. But Jefferson 
deliberately did what he admitted to be an unconstitutional 
act, when neither the existence nor the safety of the Com- 
monwealth was menaced, merely for the purpose of acquir- 
ing territory. He, who had repeatedly censured Hamilton, 
Adams, and even Washington for the exercise of powers the 
constitutionality of which was but questionable, was guilty 
of what he deemed a palpable violation of the supreme law. 
His seeming non-appreciation of the magnitude of his offence 

4 



42 NOTES ON 

is more surprising than the offence itself. Mr. Jefferson's 
infraction of the Constitution, and his failure to realize the 
importance of the act will aid us in estimating his respect 
for that instrument, as well as for laws in general. His 
comparison of the relations existing between the Federal 
authorities and the people to those of a guardian and ward, 
throws light on his notion of the functions of government, 
and reveals his legal acumen. His belief that the acquisi- 
tion of Louisiana was repugnant to the Constitution, 
coupled with his opinion that an amendment would render 
it constitutional, illustrates his ability to interpret that great 
charter, and also the profundity of his statesmanship. His 
injunction of silence, considered with reference to our people 
and to France, concerns his moral character, and his ready 
abandonment of the amendment idea may be variously 
construed. 

It will never be known how seriously Jefferson's consti- 
tutional difficulties imperilled the success of the negotia- 
tions for the purchase of Louisiana. That it was placed in 
jeopardy by them may be inferred from his own writings. 
In the letter to Mr. Nicholas he says : " If we give them 
(the French) the least opening they will declare the treaty 
void." In other letters, his fear of the injurious effects 
that a knowledge of his views of the Executive power 
would produce in France, is apparent. He assigns this as 
one of the reasons why the treaty should be ratified, and the 
purchase-money appropriated, with as little debate and as 
much expedition as possible. Desirous as France was of 
declaring the treaty void, would she not have done so had 
she, before its ratification, known that the President be- 
lieved the Government had no power to make the purchase? 
There can be no doubt of it. The fact that the power was 
questioned could scarcely be kept secret for any great length 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 43 

of time, in a country governed as ours then was. Indeed, 
Jefferson, in referring to a remarkable document received 
from France by the State Department, seems to intimate 
that she had an inkling of the constitutional difficulty. 

If she had any suspicion of such difficulty, our country 
was brought to the very verge of a serious calamity by the 
President's narrow construction of the Constitution. Mr. 
Jefferson's participation in the Louisiana purchase may be 
thus summarized. He perceived that the possession of the 
territory would prove greatly advantageous to the United 
States, but he was firmly convinced that its acquisition would 
be a violation of the Constitution. As he had sworn to 
" preserve, protect, and defend " that instrument, he naturally 
hesitated. Finding, however, that the popular will de- 
manded the purchase, and that some of his friends deemed 
the transaction constitutional, he concealed his personal con- 
victions on the subject from the public and from France, 
urged forward the negotiations, and gave his official sanc- 
tion to the measure, hoping and believing that it could and 
would be rendered constitutional by an amendment. 



44 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOME TERGIVERSATIONS, SELF-CONTRADICTIONS, AND 
INCONSISTENCIES. 

1. On March 15th, 1789, Jefferson wrote: "I know 
there are some among us who would establish a monarchy, 
but they are inconsiderable in number aud weight of char- 
acter. . . . The rising men are all republicans. ... An 
apostate from republicanism to royal ism is impossible." In 
1793, he entered among his Ana the memorandum that we 
were then "galloping into a monarchy." On April 24th, 
1796, he informed Mr. Mazzei by letter, that in place of 
the " love of republican government" a monarchical party 
had sprung up in this country; that the party was receiv- 
ing numerous and important accessions. He thus alludes 
to the character of the men who had become monarchists : 
" It would give you a fever were I name to you the apos- 
tates who have gone over, . . . men who were Samsons in 
the field, and Solomons in the council." He concludes by 
assuring his friend Mazzei that " our liberty can only be 
preserved by unremitting labors and perils/' Up to the 
time of his election to the Presidency, he continued to ex- 
press strong fears lest the government might be converted 
into a monarchy. 

2. On March 15th, 1789, Jefferson, commenting on the 
recently ratified Constitution, writes : " The executive in 
our government is not the sole — it is scarcely the principal 
object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is 
the most formidable dread of this time, and will be for 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 45 

many years. That of the executive will come, but it will 
be at a remote period." As early, however, as 1793, he 
began to express alarm at the great and increasing power 
of the executive, and before the close of Washington's 
second term, he concludes that the President possessed more 
power than the legislature. (See letter to Madison, June 
12th, 1796, and letter to Burr, June 17th, 1797.) At first, 
he attributed the preponderating influence of the President 
to the popularity of Washington, but subsequently perceiv- 
ing that this influence continued after Washington's second 
term had expired, he became apprehensive that the execu- 
tive would absorb all the powers of the government. (Let- 
ters to Gerry and others in 1797.) In the lapse of time, 
Jefferson discovered that it was not from Congress, or from 
the executive, that " we have most to fear/' but that the 
judiciary was the arch enemy of our institutions. On 
Christmas day, 1820, he wrote Thomas Ritchie: " The 
judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers 
and miners constantly working underground to undermine 
the foundations of our confederate fabric. . . . They will 
lay all things at their feet." In 1789, he dreads the legis- 
lature, and believes the executive will ultimately be dan- 
gerous, but not till a remote period. In 1797, he was 
alarmed lest the executive possess himself of all power; 
in 1820, he predicts that the judiciary will " lay all things 
at their feet." His fears as to the powers of the three great 
departments of the government have proved groundless, 
his predictions have not been fulfilled, and his calculations 
in regard to them only reveal the shallowness of his opin- 
ions, and his self-contradictions. 

3. In a Cabinet opinion, he asserted that the incorpora- 
tion of a national bank " sapped the foundations of the 
Constitution.'''' When President, in 1804, he signed a bill 



46 NOTES ON 

establishing a branch of the National Bank at New Orleans. 
In 1798, in the famous Kentucky resolutions, he pro- 
nounced the law punishing the counterfeiting of national- 
bank notes, " void and of no force/' because repugnant to 
the Constitution. In 1807, he signed a bill to punish as 
capital offences certain frauds on this bank. Albert Galla- 
tin states that Jefferson favored a recharter of the bank, 
and suggested that the bill for that purpose might become 
a law, through the detention of it by the President for ten 
days. In fact, Mr. Gallatin says that Jefferson, looking to 
a renewal of the charter, requested him " so to arrange it 
that it might" thus become a law. 

4. Writing to Mr. Jay in 1785, Jefferson advocates a 
naval force. He says : " I hope our land office will rid us 
of our debts, and that our first attention then will be to 
the beginning of a naval force. This alone can counte- 
nance our people as carriers on the water, and I suppose 
them to be determined to continue such." He also advo- 
cates a naval armament, for the punishment of outrages 
upon our citizens, when abroad. Early in 1797, he wrote 
Mr. Gerry a letter embodying his political creed. In this, 
he declares himself in favor of " such a naval force only as 
may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations 
as we have experienced," and not of a " navy which, by its 
own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will impli- 
cate us, will grind us with public burdens and sink us under 
them." 

5. In 1790, he assured Mr. Morris that "our prospect 
(financial) is really a bright one." On December 3d, 1790, 
he informed M. DeMoustier that "our experiment is going 
on happily, and that we need no changes." On May 13th, 
1791, he communicated to a friend in Europe this gratify- 
ing intelligence : " In general, our affairs are proceeding in 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 47 

a train of unparalleled prosperity, ... so that I believe I 
may say with truth, that there is not a nation under the sun 
enjoying more present prosperity, nor with more in prospect." 
These three letters, from which the above extracts are taken, 
were written after the adoption of what Jefferson calls 
" Hamilton's financial system." Upon turning to the Ana, 
we find the following: " Hamilton's financial system had 
two objects: 1st, as a puzzle, to exclude popular under- 
standing and inquiry ; 2d, as a machine for the corruption 
of the legislature." Jefferson concludes the entry by 
leaving on record for future generations the monstrous 
statement, scandalous to the writer, to the government, and 
to the nation, that the system made the Secretary of the 
Treasury u master of every vote in the legislature, which 
might give to the government the direction suited to his 
political views." 

6. Jefferson favored the funding of the public debt "as 
a measure of necessity," and afterwards denounced it. 

7. Hejapproved Adams' Defense of the American Con- 
stitutions, and subsequently condemned it. 

8. He approved the Excise Law, in a letter to Mr 
Morris, written in 1790, and a few years after, denounced 
it as unconstitutional, and pronounced it "an infernal law." 
(Letter to Madison in 1794.) 

9. On May 7th, 1783, he believes "that which proposed 
the conversion of State into Federal debts is one palatable 
ingredient in the pill we are to swallow." And after the 
United States had assumed the State debts, he writes : " I 
believe that it — assumption — is harped upon by many, to 
mark their disaffection to the Government on other 
grounds." . But, in the prefix to his Ana, he states that 
assumption provided "a pabulum for the stock-jobbing 
herd " of Hamilton. 



48 NOTES ON 

10. In 1 787, he thinks newspapers without a government 
are preferable to a government without newspapers, and 
while in the Cabinet, he wrote in his Ana that one news- 
paper had saved the Constitution. 

In a letter to Mr. Gerry, dated March 29th, 1801, he ex- 
presses another opinion of them, as follows : " If they (the 
public papers) could have continued to get all the loaves 
and fishes, that is, if I would have gone over to them, they 
would continue to eulogize. But I well knew that the mo- 
ment that such removals should take place, as the justice of 
the preceding administration ought to have executed, their 
hue and cry would be set up and they would take their old 
stand. ... A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest 
of the printers. They, like the clergy, live by the zeal 
they can kindle and the schisms they can create." Janu- 
ary 2d, 1814, he thus expresses himself: " I deplore with 
vou the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, 
and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of 
those who write for them. These ordures are rapidly de- 
praving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound 
food. As vehicles of information, and a curb to our func- 
tionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeit- 
ing all title to belief." (Letter to Dr. Walter Jones.) 

11. He regretted that the Constitution permitted the re- 
election of the President, and hoped it would be altered in 
this respect, yet was twice elected himself, favored and pro- 
moted the second election of Madison and of Monroe, and 
suggested a second election to Adams. 

12. In February, 1787, he advised Lafayette to use all 
his efforts to have the new French Constitution assimilated 
to that of Great Britain as nearly as possible. To John 
Adams, he wrote that the " English Constitution is acknowl- 
edged to be better than all which have preceded it." Yet, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 49 

in a certain famous letter he mentioned England as a 
"harlot;" he elsewhere characterized her government as 
11 the most unprincipled at this day known;" he spoke in 
the harshest terms of those who favored a monarchy — 
styled them "Anglo-men," "Monocrats," and frequently 
deplored as a great calamity, the very thought of which 
" oppressed " him, any tendency of this country towards 
that form of government which he warmly recommended 
to Lafayette. 

13. Slavery. — In 1779, Jefferson, as a member of the 
committee appointed to codify the laws of Virginia, advised 
the emancipation of all slaves, born in the State after the 
passage of the act which he drew up, and their colonization 
at a proper age. 

In 1781, he prepared the Notes on Virginia, in which he 
clearly and powerfully set forth the evils of slavery, both 
to master and slave. " The whole commerce," he writes, 
" between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the 
most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism 
on the one part, and degrading submission on the other." 
This extract will show the spirit in which he treated the 
subject. Passing to a consideration of the consequences of 
slavery, he indulges in the most gloomy forebodings. " I 
tremble" he exclaims, "for my country, when I reflect 
that God is just, that his justice will not sleep forever, that 
considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a 
revolution of the wheel of fortune ... is among possible 
events, — that it may come by supernatural influence. The 
Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in 
such a contest." The writer further declares that he can- 
not discuss the matter with composure. . 

On March 1st, 1784, Jefferson proposed and supported in 
Congress an ordinance excluding slavery from all the national 



50 NOTES ON 

territory, lying beyond the limits of the States. At that 
time, according to the opinion of Mr. Madison, Congress 
had no power over the subject. In 1785, he refused to 
grant General Chastelleux permission to publish his Notes 
on Virginia^ unless the chapters of the book pertaining to 
slavery in that State were omitted. When the Eastern 
States and Pennsylvania were preparing and passing acts 
for the liberation of the slaves within their borders, Jeffer- 
son wrote private letters respecting " emancipation and ex- 
patriation," but made no attempt to set on foot in Virginia a 
movement to accomplish the one or the other. Alarmed by 
the massacre of the whites in Santo Domingo, he cried out : 
" If something is not done (with slavery) we shall be the 
murderers of our children." Notwithstanding this alarm- 
ing apprehension, he still held his slaves, and did nothing. 
Dreading that slavery might bring about the slaughter of 
his own and his friends' children, he moved not a finger to 
avert so terrible a calamity. Some time during the year 
1814, he wrote to a young Mr. Cole a letter, in which he 
suggested that young men should not abandon their slave 
property. Mr. Cole, however, emancipated his negroes, 
took them to the West, and there provided homes for them. 
In February, 1817, Jefferson informed Dr. Humphreys 
that he was " in favor of the gradual retirement (of the 
negroes), and their establishment elsewhere in freedom." In 
1820, and 1821, while the question of admitting Missouri 
into the Union was pending before Congress, he favored 
her admission as a slave State, and opposed restrictions on 
slavery in the territory acquired from France. Extracts 
from some letters of his, written about this time, will serve 
to show his opinions on these subjects. In a letter to Gen- 
eral Breckenridge in 1821, he objects to the sending of 
young Southerners to Northern colleges, for fear of their 



THOMAS JEFFERSOJST. 51 

" imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of 
their own country." A letter, written in the same year to 
J. C. Cabell, contains the following: " How; many of our 
youths she (Harvard College) now has learning the lessons 
of anti-Missourianism, I know not. . . . These will return 
home, no doubt, deeply impressed with the sacred princi- 
ples of our Holy Alliance of Restrictionists " — of slavery. 
On August 17th, 1821, he thus writes General Dearborn: 
" Whether the question (Missouri) is dead or only sleepeth, 
I know not. I see only that it has given resurrection to 
the Hartford Convention men. They have had the address, 
by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends, to 
seduce them from their former kindred spirits. . . . They 
have adroitly wriggled into power under the auspices of 
morality, and now are again in the ascendancy, from which 
their sins had hurled them." Mr. Jefferson could not believe 
that Northern men were disinterested in their opposition to 
slavery. 

In his memoir of his own life, composed in 1821, he 
thus expresses himself: " Nothing is more certainly written 
in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free ; 
nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot 
live in the same government. Nature, habit, and opinion 
have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It 
is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation 
and deportation peacefully, and in such slow degree, as that 
the evil will wear off insensibly. If, on the contrary, it is 
left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the 
prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example 
in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This 
precedent would fall far short of our case." 

Writing to Mr. Short in 1823, he says: "We feel and 
deplore it (the existence of slavery) morally and politi- 



52 NOTES ON 

cally," etc. Jefferson clearly perceived the evils, moral 
and political, of slavery, and vividly portrayed them, but 
did little or nothing to eradicate, or even diminish them. 
During his lifetime, most of the Northern States provided 
for the gradual abolition of slavery, and hundreds of 
southern men manumitted their negroes, but he, for forty- 
fire (/ears, kept up that baleful " commerce between master 
and slave," the ill effects of which he points out in his 
Notes on Virginia. Washington, at his death, set free all 
his slaves, and enjoined upon his executors, to provide a 
" regular and permanent fund " for those unable to support 
themselves. Jefferson wrote fine sounding phrases about 
the rights of man, the wrong of slavery, and its direful 
consequences, but, while he lived, never loosed the bonds 
of a single slave, not even those of B unveil, who saved his 
life, and was otherwise so faithful. In making his will, 
too, he forgot this friend. By a codicil to the will, he 
manumitted Burwell and four others. Mr. Jefferson, no 
doubt, originally desired the abolition of slavery through- 
out the country ; but the labor of his negroes proved profit- 
able, and in this, as in other matters, his better impulses 
were checked by his lust for popularity, combined with the 
obligations of party fealty. 

14. On October 8th, 1787, Jefferson wrote of Louis 
XVI. : " The king goes for nothing. He hunts one-half 
the day, is drunk the other half, and signs whatever he is 
bid." On April 6th, 1790, he states that this same king is, 
" A prince, the model of royal excellence." 

15. He signed the Alien Law, and the Sedition Lair as 
Vice-President, and, still being Vice-President, prepared 

the Resolutions of 1798, in which he pronounced those 
laws not laws, but absolutely void. 

16. In December, 1787, in a letter to Mr. Madison, J ef- 



THOM As J E FFERS< >N . 53 

ferson, the champion of the people, and the advocate of 
universal equality, expresses a doubt whether the members 
of the House of Representatives, when elected by the 
people, would be as well qualified for their duties as they 
would be, if chosen by the legislatures of the States. 

17. This same stickler for popular equality suggested 
that one house of the Virginia Legislature — he preferred 
the Senate — should represent the wealth of the State. 

18. He wished all kings swept from the earth, but 
thought most of the nations of Europe incapable of self- 
government. 

19. The characteristic vacillation of Jefferson is illustrated 
by his varying opinions in regard to the Constitution. To 
one he writes : There are very good articles in it, and very 
bad." To another: " I confess there are things in it which 
stagger all my disposition to subscribe to what such an 
assembly has proposed." In 1787, he thinks, "All the 
good in this new Constitution might have been couched in 
three or four new articles, to be added to the good old and 
venerable fabric, which should hare been preserved." (Letter 
to Adams.) 

In 1789, writing to Dr. Humphreys, he extols this same 
new Constitution, as the "wisest ever presented to man" 
In a letter to A. Donald, he thus discourses respecting it : 
" I wish with all my soul that the nine first Conventions 
may accept the Constitution ; this will secure to us the good 
it contains, which, I think, is great and important. But I 
equally wish that the four latest Conventions, whichever they 
be, may refuse to execute it, till a Declaration of Rights be 
annexed." Upon further reflection, he favored the " Mas- 
sachusetts plan " of adopting first, and amending afterwards. 

20. Mr. Jefferson's remaining in the Cabinet, while he 
opposed many of the prominent measures of Washington's 



54 NOTES ON 

administration, and even seemed anxious to embarrass it, 
involves a question not only of consistency, but of self- 
respect. Alexander Hamilton admirably discusses the duty 
of a Cabinet officer in this regard, with special reference 
to Jefferson's conduct, in an open letter signed Metellus, 
from which we take the following paragraph : " If he can 
not coalesce with those with whom he is associated, as far 
as the rules of official decorum, propriety, and obligation 
may require, without abandoning what he conceives to be 
the interests of the community, let him not cling to the 
honor or the emolument of an office, whichever it be, that 
attracts him. Let him renounce a situation which is a clog 
upon his patriotism, and tell the people he could no longer 
continue in it without forfeiting his duty to them ; that he 
lias quitted it to serve them. Such is the course that would 
be pursued by a man attentive to unite the sense of delicacy 
with the sense of duty — in earnest about the pernicious ten- 
dency of public measures, and more solicitous to act the 
disinterested friend of the people, than the interested, ambi- 
tious, and intriguing head of a party." Mr. Jefferson, 
while Secretary of State, indirectly encouraged, if he did 
not directly instigate, attacks upon Washington and upon 
his administration. Hamilton, in a letter signed " An 
American," having asked whether it was possible that the 
head of the principal department of the government could 
be " the patron of a paper, the evident object of which was 
to decry the government and its measures/' thus proceeds : 
" If he disapproves of the government itself, and thinks it 
deserving of his opposition, can he reconcile it to his own 
personal dignity and the principles of probity, to hold an 
office under it, and employ the means of official influence in 
that opposition? If he disapproves of the leading mea- 
sures adopted in the course of his(?) administration, can he 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 55 

reconcile it with the principles of propriety and delicacy to 
hold a place in that administration, and at the same time, 
be instrumental in vilifying measures, which have been 
adopted by both branches of the Legislature, and sanctioned 
by the Chief Magistrate of the United States." These 
papers, signed respectively "An American" and " Metel- 
lus," should be read by every one desirous of forming a 
correct estimate of Jefferson and Hamilton. No reply to 
either of them was made by Jefferson. 

21. Just before signing, as Secretary of State, Washing- 
ton's proclamation against the Western rioters, Jefferson 
complained to Madison of being " forced to appear to 
approve what I have condemned uniformly." It is diffi- 
cult to understand the mental and moral nature of a person 
who, in view of the facts, could write these words. One 
can scarcely imagine how a brave and honorable man, in 
performing the duties of a Cabinet officer, can be forced 
to seem to approve what he condemns. 



•56 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER VIII. 

jefferson's apprehensions of monarchy. 

Jefferson seems to have been haunted by the perpetual 
fear of our return to monarchy, and to have believed that 
there really was in the country an organized party, striving 
to accomplish that result. He falls into despondency, in 
contemplation of so dire a calamity; he burns with indigna- 
tion against those who would bring it upon the people ; is 
"almost oppressed with the apprehension that we shall be 
driven back to the land, from which we launched, twenty 
years ago." He brands fabulous friends of monarchial in- 
stitutions as "Monocrats;" like a political Don Quixote, 
he assails imaginary "apostates" from republican principles, 
with the Mazzei letter; he raves about the " energumenoi 
of royalty," till one is tempted to believe that he himself is 
a demoniac. The two persons, whom Jefferson thought 
most grievously afflicted with this monarchial mania, were 
John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. These were the 
leading and most influential plotters against the liberties of 
the people. Washington was their dupe and instrument — 
the lay figure upon which the chief conspirators hung "the 
rags of royalty," with which Jefferson declared he was en- 
veloped. But the arch-fiend, the Lucifer of the revolt 
against free government, was Hamilton. What were the 
reasons for all this solicitude and indignation ? There were 
none. The only pretext for them was that Washington, 
Adams, Marshall, Jay, Hamilton and other men of wis- 
dom believed that the Federal government should possess 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 57 

more power than Jefferson thought it ought to have. From 
this difference of opinion, Jefferson inferred their desire for 
the restoration of monarchy. When he mentioned his fears 
of royalty to Washington, the General ridiculed the idea, 
and said that in his opinion there "were not ten men in the 
United States, who entertained such a thought." On 
another occasion Washington, incensed at the press insinua- 
tions that he, favored a monarchy, vehemently declared that 
he regretted having accepted the presidency a second time — 
that he would rather be on his farm than to be made emperor 
of the world, and yet they were charging him with wanting 
to be a king. (The Ana, August 2d, 1793). Jefferson, in a 
letter to Mr. Van Buren, admits that Hamilton said the 
idea of a monarchy was visionary, and in a conversation 
with the same gentleman, expressed his belief in Hamilton's 
" frankness in regard to public matters." In a private 
letter written in May, 1792, to his friend Colonel Carring- 
ton, to whom he would most certainly state his real opinions, 
Hamilton says "I am firmly attached to the republican 
theory," and stigmatized "any attempt to subvert the sys- 
tem of the country, as both criminal and visionary." That 
Hamilton was not amenable to the charge of endeavoring 
to overthrow our form of government, seems clear enough. 
Jefferson's theory of a royalist party was dealt a most 
damaging blow by John Adams. On July 17th, 1791, he 
wrote to the Massachusetts statesman a letter, in which he 
remarked that their difference as to the best form of govern- 
ment was well known to both of them ; Adams, on July 
29th, replied that he had never had a serious conversation 
with Jefferson on the subject, and that any allusions to it 
or mention of it between them had always been made in a 
jocular or imperfect manner. "If you suppose," he con- 
tinues, "that I ever had a design or a desire of attempting 



58 NOTES ON 

to introduce a government of Kings, Lords and Commons; 
or in other words, an hereditary executive or an hereditary 
senate either into the government of the United States, 

or of any individual state, you are wholly mistaken 

I beg you, if you have ever put such a construction upon 
anything said by me, that you will mention it, and I will un- 
dertake to convince you that it has no such meaning." To 
this direct denial and call for evidence there was no reply. 
It thus appears, that the three persons whom Jefferson most 
strongly charged with endeavoring to subvert the republic, 
disavowed any design or desire to restore a monarchy. 
Their reputation should render their disavowal conclusive. 
But the theory that these men or their associates purposed 
a return to monarchial institutions, is inherently most im- 
probable ; men, by whose efforts and abilities the colonies 
had been transformed into independent states, and provided 
with a certain form of free government, would hardly be so 
unstable as to attempt or wish a change of that form, before 
its efficiency had been fully tested. Had there been any 
who desired to re-establish royalty, they must have had 
little discernment indeed, not to perceive that the popular 
love of freedom, and hatred of regal power, would render 
abortive all schemes for effecting such re-establishment. 
No proofs of the existence of a monarchial party were offered. 
When Adams called upon Jefferson for evidence that the 
former favored the introduction of hereditary institutions, 
the latter, as above stated, was silent. In a letter to Wash- 
ington, dated August 18th, 1792, Hamilton replies to the 
allegation that there is a royalist party in the country, in 
this effective manner ; " to this there is no other answer 
than a flat denial, except this ; that the project from its ab- 
surdity defeats itself. The idea of introducing a monarchy 
or an aristocracy into this country, by employing the influ- 



THOMAS .JEFFERSON. 59 

ence of a government continually changing hands, towards 
it, is one of those visionary things that none but madmen 
could meditate, and that no wise man will believe. If it 
could be done at all, which is utterly incredible, it would 
require a long series of time, certainly beyond the life of 
any individual, to effect it. Who then would enter into 
such a plot ? To hope that the people may be cajoled into 
giving their sanction to such institutions, is still more chi- 
merical. A people so enlightened and so diversified as the 
people of this country, can surely never be brought to it, 
but from convulsions and disorders in consequence of threats 
of popular demagogues. The truth unquestionably, is that 
the only path to the subversion of the republican system of 
the country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and 
exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs 
into confusion and bring on civil war. Tired at length of 
anarchy, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy 

for repose and security 

Those, then, who resist a confirmation of public order 
are the true artificers of monarchy." These are the words 
of a statesman, and, therefore, they are quite different from 
those of self-seeking demagogues. In the letter to Wash- 
ington, containing the allegation that Hamilton answers as 
above, Jefferson states that the same parties who then de- 
sired a monarchy, endeavored to establish one in the Consti- 
tutional Convention. Hamilton shows that but few of 
those who sat in the Convention were, at the time Jefferson 
wrote, potential in public affairs, and declares that in that 
body every one agreed that the British form of government, 
though possessing much merit, was out of the question in 
this country. As he had been a member of the Conven- 
tion, and Jefferson during its session was in Europe, it is 
easy to determine whose statement is the more likely to be 



QQ NOTES ON 



correct. Moreover, Mr. Madison, also a member, substan- 
tially sustains Hamilton in regard to the sentiments of the 
Convention. 

There is little doubt that Jefferson's apprehensions of a 
return to monarchy were groundless. Some believe that 
they were entirely feigned. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 61 



CHAPTER IX. 

JEFFERSON AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Mr. Jefferson's admirers are never weary of extolling 
him for composing the Declaration of Independence. The 
inscription on his tomb, prepared by himself, informs all 
the world that he regarded that document as one of the 
three great works of his life, one of his title deeds to fame. 
A little attention to the history of the paper, and to its 
contents, may dissipate some of the prevalent illusions re- 
specting its authorship, and its intrinsic merits. 

The Declaration, with which we are familiar, whatever 
its merits or defects, is by no means the same that was 
drafted by Jefferson. Of the Declaration prepared by him, 
Congress struck out more than one-fourth, and made nu- 
merous amendments of the remainder. It is very probable 
that much more would have been discarded, but for the 
efforts of John Adams, who possessed great influence in the 
Congress, and who, having conceived a high regard for the 
author, generously and vigorously defended the document. 
Jefferson, long afterwards, described Adams's arguments in 
its behalf as, in the highest degree, powerful and convincing, 
characterizing him as a very Colossus in the protracted 
debate. The Declaration contains little that was new, ex- 
cept the arrangement. The grievances enumerated in it 
had been repeatedly set forth. It is compiled, with some 
change of language, mainly from four documents, issued by 
the first Continental Congress in 1774, to wit: A Declara- 
tion of Rights ; An Address to the People of Great Britain ; 



62 NOTES o\ 

A Memorial to the Inhabitants of the Colonies ; and A 
Petition to the King of Great Britain. Its opening some- 
what resembles the beginning of the Memorial just men- 
tioned, " separation " being substituted for "opposition." 
The short, paragraphic style, so effective in it, is borrowed 
from the Petition to the King. Some of the most telling 
passages are taken from the Mecklenburg Declaration of 
Independence, adopted May 20th, 1775. 

A few examples of the amendments made will show how- 
much they were needed. " Inherent and inalienable rights," 
found in the original, was changed to "certain inalienable 
rights." In the clause, " to expunge their former systems 
of government," "alter" is substituted for "expunge." 
"A history of unremitting injuries" was amended by put- 
ting "repeated" in the place of "unremitting." The pas- 
sage, " He has suffered the administration of justice totally 
to cease in some of these States, refusing his assent to laws/' 
was remodelled so as to read, " He has obstructed the ad- 
ministration of justice by refusing his assent to laws." 
From the sentence, " He has kept among us in times of 
peace standing armies and ships of war," the last four words 
were omitted, there being, perhaps, some doubts as to the 
ability even of a king to keep among us ships of war. In the 
original was the following : " To prove this, let facts be sub- 
mitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a 
faith yet unsullied by falsehood." From this sentence was 
stricken the clause after " world." The original draft, con- 
tained such verbiage as this: "Future ages will scarcely 
believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within 
the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation 
so broad, and so undisguised for tyranny over a people fos- 
tered and fixed in principles of freedom;" and such fustian 
as this : " We (British and Americans) might have been a 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 63 

free and a great people together, but a communication of 
grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. 
Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness 
and to glory is open to us too " The following reads like 
the production of a sentimental voting woman: "These 
facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection , and 
manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling 
brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love 
for them." 

Some of the grievances complained of did not exist. For 
example, Parliament had passed no law depriving the colo- 
nists of trial by jury. The Declaration asserts that the 
king " has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt 
our towns." It would have been difficult for its author to 
verify this terrible and preposterous accusation against his 
majesty. Throughout the document, the Colonies are im- 
properly styled States. This error was, in several places, 
corrected by the Congress. The parts taken from the Meck- 
lenburg Declaration are the reference to inherent rights, the 
clause declaring that the Colonies " are and of right ought 
to be" independent States, those clauses pronouncing their 
absolution from allegiance to the British crown, and the 
dissolution of all political connection with Great Britain, 
and the concluding pledge of lives, fortunes, and sacred 
honors. In borrowing from the Mecklenburg paper, the 
word " inalienable " before " rights " was substituted for 
" undeniable." The latter is certainly the proper word. 
There are no such things as inalienable rights. A free man 
can alienate some of his rights, or all of them. He, who is 
incapable of doing this, is not a free man. 

In the Declaration as it now stands, the last paragraph is 
the' best. It is characterized by a clear, strong, and ani- 
mated diction, that stirs the blood, and has won for it de- 



64 NOTES ON 

served admiration. The draft of the paragraph, as reported 
by the committee, is as follows : " We, therefore, the Rep- 
resentatives of the United States of America in General 
Congress assembled, do, in the name and by the authority 
of the good people of these States, reject and renounce all 
allegiance and subjection to the kings of Great Britain, and 
all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under 
them ; we utterly dissolve all political connection which 
may heretofore have subsisted between us and the people or 
Parliament of Great Britain ; and finally, we do assert and 
declare these Colonies to be free and independent States ; 
and that as free and independent States they have full 
power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, estab- 
lish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which 
independent States may of right do. And for the support 
of this declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our 
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." As has been 
stated, the final sentence, the most telling part of this 
paragraph, is borrowed from another paper. 

The inferiority of the original paragraph to the amended 
one, is manifest. It will be seen that in the former, there 
is no invocation of Divine Providence, nor is there such 
invocation anywhere in the Declaration prepared by the 
committee. The absence of this is one of its chief defects. 
The Declaration, although expurgated and amended by the 
Congress, is exaggerated in statement, turgid and redundant 
in style, and needlessly long. An examination of the first 
paragraph, the exclusive work of Mr. Jefferson, reveals the 
serious defects concealed beneath its flowing language. The 
clause immediately following the opening " when," is su- 
perfluous, since, the necessity of dissolving the bands men- 
tioned, must come if it come at all, in the course of human 
events. The paragraph intimates, that the ordinary course 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 65 

of affairs brings about the necessity of dissolution, that the 
advent of such necessity is of frequent occurrence, whereas, 
in reality, the necessity for separation rarely if ever arises, 
though the separation may often be desirable or advanta- 
geous. It is assumed, that one of the peoples has not only 
the sole right, but the ability to effect the dissolution, 
although both of them are alike interested in the matter, 
and the one attempting a forcible separation may, and often 
does fail. The colonists and the British are treated as two 
peoples, while in fact, they were then the same people, in 
the sense of the word as there employed. 

Not only does it become necessary for some citizens of a 
nation, who are styled a people, to effect the dissolution 
aforesaid, whether they can or can not, but it becomes ne- 
cessary for them to assume a separate and equal station 
among the powers of the earth. The separation, if accom- 
plished, would probably give them a separate station, but 
how shall a feeble people take an equal station among the 
strong powers of the earth ? Why such a question? The 
station to be assumed, is that " equal station, (equal to what ?) 
to which" certain laws entitle the people. Surely, this is 
clear enough. These laws are of two kinds, the laws of 
nature, and the laws of nature's God. Many persons believe 
that the laws of nature, and those of nature's God are the 
same, but one author seems to have had a different opinion. 

In the paragraph, the residents of the Colonies are re- 
ferred to as " one people." This term may mean a race, 
as for instance, the Jewish people. Its other meaning is an 
organized political society, a nation. It is evident that the 
author employs it in the latter sense, for he sets it in oppo- 
sition to Great Britain, confessedly a nation. A nation 
possesses independence and sovereignity. Were the Colo- 
nies when they declared their independence, already inde- 



66 NOTES ON 

pendent? They were not so then, and never had been. 
Their inhabitants were at the time, citizens of Great Britain, 
subjects of the British king, to whom they had repeatedly 
acknowledged their allegiance. The very paper in which 
the term is found clearly establishes these facts. A war of 
seven years was required to secure for them independence 
and sovereignty, the essential attributes of a nation. What, 
then, could be more erroneous than to style them a 
" people?" 

The cause assigned for drawing up the Declaration is 
worthy of notice. There were excellent reasons for prepar- 
ing and publishing such a paper. It would present in one 
group, and in a formal manner, the wrongs inflicted upon 
the Colonies by the Crown, and the grievances of which 
they complained, so that the people might clearly compre- 
hend the motives which urged the Congress to adopt the 
momentous resolution of severing their connection with the 
mother country, and thereby be induced to sustain the 
movement. It would tend to produce unity of thought, 
feeling of action. It would inspirit the army, confirm 
the wavering, encourage the timid, arouse the indifferent. 
It might enable the Congress to borrow money, or nego- 
tiate treaties, which could not be done without such declara- 
tion. It might bring to the Colonies, in the impending 
contest, the assistance of some nation, or monarch hostile 
to England. These, and similar reasons would seem to be 
sufficient to account for the preparation of the Document. 
But it appears from the paragraph, that members of the 
Congress were not moved in this matter by any such con- 
siderations. They were prompted by " a decent respect for 
the opinions of mankind." Is it possible that the immortal 
Declaration was drafted, discussed, adopted and published 
for that reason only? Did John Adams for three days, de- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 67 

fend it against the assaults of its enemies, out of regard for 
the opinions of mankind ? Or did Mr. Jefferson merely 
ascribe to others the feeling which impelled him to favor 
it ? This clause, and his desire to submit " facts to a candid 
world," remind one of an incident in the life of Anacharsis 
Clootz, a notorious atheist of the French Revolution. 
Clootz, though a German, sat in the National Convention. 
When some one demanded of him, by what right, he a 
German, occupied a seat in the National Convention of 
France, he replied that he was a Representative of the human 
race. Since atheists believe there is no Supreme Ruler of 
the Universe, they can appeal to nothing wiser or higher 
than the human race. It is probable that Jefferson, while 
resident in France, acquired from them the habit, observable 
in his writing, of invoking the judgment, or approval of 
mankind. 

The second paragraph is also the work of Jefferson. It 
opens with the statement of several propositions, that are 
declared to be self-evident truths. It is doubtful, whether 
a single one of them embodies a self-evident truth. Two 
of them are manifestly untrue, to wit : the proposition 
" that all men are created equal/' and the proposition "that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inali- 
enable rights." Who does not know that at birth, 
which may be said to mark the end of creation, men are 
unequal, socially, physically and mentally ? They differ 
in health, some inheriting disease, and others being corpor- 
ally sound ; in strength, in size, in rank, in possessions. 
They are even morally unlike, some being tainted with a 
hereditary tendency to vice or crime, for the iniquity of 
fathers is visited upon their children. Nor do men, at birth, 
possess equal rights. Such may have been originally the 
case, under the law of nature, but that law has been so 



68 NOTES ON 

modified, in its operation, by municipal and other laws, re- 
sulting from the necessities of society, that the rights of 
men, in one nation, differ from those rights, in another 
nation, and, even in the same country, some persons have 
certain rights that others do not possess. The doctrine of 
" inalienable " rights has been elsewhere shown to be un- 
tenable. 

Mr. Jefferson seems unfortunate here in his choice of lan- 
guage respecting human rights. He declares that men are 
endowed by their Creator with certain rights ; he names as 
one of those rights, the pursuit of happiness. The logical 
deduction is that the Creator has endowed men with the 
pursuit of happiness, which is an absurdity. He no doubt 
meant to say "Among these" are the right to life, the right 
to liberty, and the right to the pursuit of happiness. That 
men have an indefeasible natural right to life, and to 
liberty, is indisputable, but the proposition that they have 
such a right to pursue their own happiness, must be accepted 
with some qualification. All the remaining propositions, 
here enunciated, have been, or can be denied or questioned 
by thoughtful men, and cannot, therefore, be regarded as 
self-evident truths. 

Further on, the author, if his own words be taken in 
their ordinary signification, intimates that some unnamed 
person, w T ho governs the whole earth, harbors the design of 
reducing mankind " under an absolute despotism," and as- 
sures his fellow creatures that it is their right and their duty 
to throw off the government of this universal tyrant. What 
a spectacle would be presented by the human race strug- 
gling to resist an impending despotism ! The attention of 
the reader is next arrested by this remarkable period, which 
we present in the form that it bore, before amendment : 
" The history of the present king of Great Britain is a 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 69 

history of unremitting injuries and usurpations, among 
Which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform 
tenor of the rest, but all have in direct object, the establish- 
ment of an absolute tyranny over these states." Here are 
two very awkwardly expressed allegations ; first, that the 
king, since his accession, has been continually engaged in 
the work of injury and usurpation ; second, that the sole 
purpose of this unremitting work has been, and is to 
establish a tyranny over his American Colonies. In other 
words, the monarch of a powerful and populous kingdom 
has, for sixteen years, been devoting his time and attention 
exclusively to the task of imposing a tyranny upon some 
thousands of his loyal subjects, dwelling in another hemi- 
sphere. 

The paragraph closes with the rash offer to prove this 
extravagant statement, to the world. It is fair to say that 
the first and second paragraphs are more objectionable than 
the others. Indeed, the document as a whole is by no 
means devoid of merit. The arrangement is proper, the 
language generally good, the style flowing, sometimes 
strong, occasionally elevated. The wrongs inflicted upon our 
fathers by the British Government are vigorously set forth. 
But while it is admitted that our valued Declaration pos- 
sesses merit, it is not admitted that Jefferson deserves the 
high praise accorded to him as its author. On the con- 
trary, it seems clear from the following considerations, that 
he does not deserve it : 1. He did not suggest the prepara- 
tion of such a paper. 2. He did little to secure its adoption. 
3. He is not the sole author of it. It is true that most of it 
is his work ; but the Congress, by omitting a great deal 
of his original draft, and making many alterations in the 
remainder, did much to impart to it its present popular 
form. 4. The omissions and alterations greatly improved 



70 NOTES ON 

the original. 5. The Declaration, though bettered by 
expurgation and amendments, is yet far from being a mas- 
terpiece. We have seen how obnoxious to criticism some 
portions of it are. 6. The renown which the written Dec- 
laration has brought Jefferson is partly attributable to the 
grandeur of the deed with which it is associated. The act 
of declaring the Colonies free and independent was an act 
of such transcendent importance in our history, that it ren- 
dered famous even the man, who prepared the form of 
words in which it was done. The paper styled the Decla- 
ration of Independence is not venerated by us on account 
of its excellence as a piece of composition, but because it is 
the new Magna Charta of our ancestral liberties ; because it 
explains and vindicates a transaction which marked the 
dawn of a better, a glorious era, a transaction, without 
which, the independence, the prosperity, and the power of 
these United States would have been impossible; because 
it reminds us that our fathers belonged to a race accustomed 
to the rights of freemen ; that they regarded them as of 
inestimable value, and that they were willing to risk life 
and fortune in order to transmit those rights, as a precious 
heritage, to their children. 7. For more than a quarter of 
a century, Jefferson was the idol of a majority of the Ameri- 
can people. The multitude, even more than the individual, 
is disposed to overlook the faults, and magnify the merits 
of its favorite. The Declaration is the best of his literary 
works, of which there are few; it treats, too, of something 
in which every man is profoundly interested. It is not at 
all surprising, then, that the people deemed it a production 
of extraordinary excellence. Demagogues, courting the 
favor of the democratic elements in society, found it profit- 
able to praise Jefferson and his works, and, of course, 
lauded the Declaration to the skies, thus perpetuating and 



THOMAS JEFFERSOX. 71 

strengthening the erroneous opinion of its merits, origi- 
nally formed. This was the more easily clone, because all 
were inclined to view with favor whatever was written by 
one who had assisted to lay the foundations of the republic. 
To the popular affection for Jefferson, and to the laudation of 
him by demagogues, some of them gifted with great ability, 
is to be ascribed, we believe, much of the honor that has 
been accorded to him, as author of the Declaration of In- 
dependence. 



72 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER X. 

SOME REMARKABLE POLITICAL THEORIES. 

1. Jefferson proposed a Commission, to consist of one 
Congressional representative from each State, which should 
have the same powers as Congress, and sit permanently, 
while Congress was not in session. One such Commission 
was appointed, but it soon became the scene of such bitter 
disputation, as to render further consultation on public 
measures impossible. In a short time, it ceased to assemble, 
its powers expired, and no other was ever appointed. — 
Morse's Life of Hamilton. 

2. In 1787, after an experience of seven years had con- 
clusively shown that the Articles of Confederation were 
totally inadequate to the indispensable purposes of a na- 
tional government, after every State had recognized this in- 
adequacy by appointing delegates to a Convention for orga- 
nizing a new Constitution, and when the Convention was 
actually in session, Jefferson still believed that the Gov- 
ernment of the Confederation, was " without comparison 
the best existing, or that ever did exist." — Letter to Mr. 
Carrington. 

3. In the same letter, he expresses these opinions : that 
Congress had power under the Confederation to enforce con- 
tributions of money from the several States; that "it was 
not necessary to give Congress that power expressly ; they 
have it by the law of nature," and that " compulsion was 
never so easy as in our (?) this, case." It is well known that 
no State admitted the possession by Congress of the power 



TH<»f.\s JEFFERSON. 13 

mentioned, and that Congress did not claim such power, or 
attempt to exercise it. As early as July, 1782, the Legis- 
lature of New York unanimously resolved, " That ex- 
perience has demonstrated the Confederation to be defective 
in several essential points, particularly in not vesting the 
Federal Government with the power of providing revenue 
for itself." In April, 1783, the Congress of the Confeder- 
ation passed resolutions recommending to the several States 
to invest the Congress with certain specified powers for 
raising revenue, to restore and maintain the public credit. 
In February, 1786, a committee, consisting of Messrs. King, 
Pinckney, Kean, Monroe, and Petit in their report to 
Congress, say, that " It most clearly appeared, that the 
requisitions of Congress for eight years, have been so ir- 
regular in their operation, so uncertain in their collection, 
and so evidently unproductive, that a reliance on them in 
future, as a source from whence moneys are to be drawn to 
discharge the engagements of the Confederacy, . . . would 
be not less dishonorable to the understandings of those who 
entertain such confidence; that it would be dangerous to the 
welfare and peace of the Union," and recommend that Con- 
gress should represent to the several States " the utter im- 
possibility of maintaining and preserving the faith of the 
Federal government, by temporary requisitions on the 
States." The Congress agreed to this report. What Con- 
gress deemed it utterly impossible to do, Jefferson declared 
could be most easily performed. His opinion that Con- 
gress possessed the power under consideration, is hardly so 
remarkable as his declaration that the power results from 
the Law of Nature. It is scarcely possible that any citizen 
of the United States, except Mr. Jefferson, could deduce 
such a power from that law. But how does he propose to 
enforce the power. "A single frigate would soon levy on 

6 



74 NOTES ON 

the commerce of any state the deficiency of its contribu- 
tions." Nothing could be more simple, or more summary. 
Yet the founders of the Republic, strangely enough, bore 
their financial troubles for eight years, without resorting to 
this efficacious method of terminating them. Congress 
again and again, appealed to the States, and to their citizens 
to discharge their requisitions. They were reminded of 
their "plighted faith ;" — that the public debt had been con- 
tracted for the common benefit. They were assured that 
"justice, honor, and gratitude" demanded the payment of 
their quotas. They were warned that the cause of liberty, 
which they had engaged to vindicate, would be " blotted " 
by the failure of the Confederation to fulfil its engage- 
ments. Appeals, reminders, and warnings were attended 
with but partial success, but the Representatives in Con- 
gress, dullards that they were, never tried the effect of a 
" single frigate," operating against the commerce of a State. 
Had they done this, all would have been well. 

4. He entertained curious notions respecting the re-eligi- 
bility of the president, allowed by the Constitution. He 
wrote the " President will be a bad edition of a Polish king. 
He may be elected from four years to four years, for life. 
Reason and experience prove to us that a chief magistrate 
so continuable, is an office for life. When one or two 
generations shall have proved that there is an office for life, 
it becomes, on every succession, worthy of intrigue, of 
bribery, force and even of foreign interference. It will be 
of great consequence to France and England, to have 
America governed by a Gallo-man, or an Anglo-man. Once 
in office, and possessing the military force of the Union, 
without the aid or check of a council, he would not be 
easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to 
withdraw their votes from him." This quotation from a 



THOMAS .IEFFERSOX. 75 

letter, written to John Adams in November, 1787, shows 
what vagaries may emanate from the brain of a sage. It 
is apparent, that in regard to the matter under consideration, 
he possessed little of the experience, and less of the reason 
to which he appeals in support of his views. Again, allud- 
ing to the subject in a letter to Mr. Madison, dated De- 
cember 20th, 1787, he states his fear that in cases of close 
elections, the President " will pretend false votes, foul play, 
and hold possession of the reins of government," and that, 
if the people were disposed to vote him out, foreign powers 
would not permit it, if his continuance in office would pro- 
mote their interests. 

5. He styled the people of the United States under the 
Constitution, "a Society," and, oddly enough, called the 
suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, " arming one portion 
of the society against another." 

6. He designated Virginia as his "country," and the 
United States courts as " foreign jurisdictions," although he 
was at the time Vice-President of the United States, as well 
as a citizen of Virginia. 

7. In 1797, Jefferson wrote to Mr. Monroe a letter, in 
which he recommended that some means be devised to pun- 
ish residents of Virginia for attempting to transfer to the 
Federal courts, suits brought by or against them in the 
tribunals of that State. In the year named, Justice Iredell 
of the United States Supreme Court, delivered a charge to 
the grand jury, in the United States court at Richmond, 
whereupon the jury presented certain circular letters of 
several members of Congress, among them, that of Samuel 
J. Cabell, of Virginia. Jefferson desired to punish, through 
the courts of the State, those by whose agency the present- 
ments were made. Hence his letter to Monroe. He pro- 
posed that the Legislature should enact a law, declaring 



76 NOTES ON 

that a " plea to the jurisdiction of a State court, or the re- 
clamation of a foreign jurisdiction, if adjudged valid, would 
be safe, but if adjudged invalid, should be followed by the 
punishment of 'praemunire for the attempt." The crime of 
praemunire, under the English law, was a contempt of the 
king's authority, manifested by the introduction, or the 
attempt to introduce, a foreign authority into the realm. 
The law of praemunire was enacted to check Papal aggres- 
sions in Great Britain, and the punishment of one convicted 
of invoking the Pope's protection was banishment, the for- 
feiture of lands and goods, loss of member, or, of life itself. 
In order to protect State rights, not from actual, but from 
apprehended invasion, Mr. Jefferson would attack the great 
common-law right of every freeman, to question the au- 
thority of the tribunal, that assumes to try him or his cause. 
He proposed to assail this precious right by passing an un- 
constitutional law, for under the Federal Constitution the 
citizen has, in many cases, the privilege of removing his 
cause from a State to a Federal court. It is true, the pro- 
posed law did not forbid him to apply for a removal ; it 
only punished him in case his application was unsuccessful. 
But how many would make the application, at the risk of 
being subjected to the pains and penalties of praemunire f 
It was a tyrannical law. It admitted the existence of a 
right, but sought to deprive the citizen of it by means at 
once indirect and cruel. By the enactment of such a law, 
the Legislature of Virginia would virtually say to every one 
within her borders : You have, indeed, the right to be tried 
by a Federal court, when charged with a certain offence ; 
nevertheless, in such case, we will bring you before one of 
our State courts, and if you there ask for your acknowl- 
edged rights and are refused, or if you even presume to 
plead to the jurisdiction of the State tribunal, and your 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 77 

plea is not sustained, you will be punished with fine, ban- 
ishment, or death. Such a law would be a blot on the 
statute book of an enlightened State, and is fit only for the 
code of a Draco. 

It is superfluous to say that neither the law suggested 
by Jefferson — a law begotten by spite, and born of folly — 
nor any similar law, was ever enacted in Virginia. 

8. In the year 1798, Mr. Jefferson drafted nine resolu- 
tions, a. copy of which he sent to George Nicholas, of Ken- 
tucky. His purpose was to have them adopted by the Legis- 
lature of that State, and the Legislatures of other States. 
These resolutions, modified, have become famous, under the 
name of " the Kentucky Resolutions of '98," frequently 
contracted to "the Resolutions of ; 98." 

The first affirmed that the Federal Constitution is a com- 
pact between the States, to which each of the thirteen States 
is a party ; that "each party has an equal right to judge for 
itself, as well of infractions of the compact, as of the mode 
and measure of redress." 

The second declares that the Constitution has delegated 
to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the 
securities and current coin of the United States, piracies 
and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against 
the law of nations, and " no other crimes whatsoever." 
There is not a native-born man in the country, who does 
not know that Congress has power to punish other offences, 
for example, offences pertaining to the mails. 

The fifth applies the right alleged in the first, to three 
Acts of the preceding Congress : the Alien Law, the Sedition 
Law, and the Law to punish counterfeiting the notes of the 
United States Bank, each of which three laws is pro- 
nounced in the resolution, " not law, but altogether void 
and of no force." 



78 NOTES ON 

The seventh postpones action upon sundry other Congres- 
sional enactments, until they can be subjected to " revisal 
and correction." 

The eighth directs the appointment of a " Committee of 
Conference and Correspondence/' who are to communicate 
the foregoing resolutions to the several States, and inform 
them that Kentucky, with all her esteem for the co-States 
and for the Union, is determined " to submit to undelegated, 
and, consequently, unlimited powers in no man or body of 
men on earth," and " that any State has a natural right, in 
cases not within the compact, to nullify, of its own authority, 
all assumptions of power by others within its limits." 

It further authorizes and instructs the Committee afore- 
said, to ask the co-States " to concur in declaring these acts 
void and of no force, and each to take measures of its own 
for providing that neither of these acts, nor any other of 
the General Government, not plainly and intentionally au- 
thorized by the Constitution, shall be ex.ercised within their 
respective limits." In this resolution, too, it is set forth 
that any appeal or communication to Congress in regard to 
acts deemed unconstitutional is manifestly improper, since 
Congress is no party to the compact, but merely its crea- 
ture." 

The ninth gives to the said Committee power to corre- 
spond with other like committees, to be appointed by the 
" co-States," and requires a report of its proceedings to be 
made to the next session of the Legislature. 

Mr. Nicholas was wise enough not to submit all of these 
resolutions to the Legislature of Kentucky. He rejected the 
eighth and ninth, and substituted for them two drawn up 
by himself, the purport of which was, that the seven pre- 
ceding resolutions should be laid before Congress by the 
Senators and Representatives of Kentucky ; that they should 



• THOMAS JEFFERSON. 79 

use their best endeavors to procure the repeal of the obnox- 
ious acts at the next session, and should ask the Representa- 
tives of the other States to concur with them in the effort 
to effect this repeal. Not a single State Legislature adopted 
the resolutions, so carefully elaborated by Jefferson. That 
of Kentucky passed seven of them, together with Mr. 
Nicholas's substitutes for the eighth and ninth. The Vir- 
ginia Legislature adopted resolutions similar in spirit to 
those of Jefferson, and less objectionable in language, but 
omitted entirely the clause which declared void the three 
laws specified by him. The resolutions of Kentucky were 
never laid before Congress. The Legislatures of ten States 
disavowed the right of a State Legislature to decide on the 
validity of Acts of Congress. 

Had the resolutions of Jefferson been adopted and acted 
upon by the several States, or by two or three of the strong 
ones, at or about the time they were drafted, it is clear that 
there would have been a collision between the Federal Gov- 
ernment and some of the States; the recalcitrant States would 
have withdrawn from the Union, for the central authority 
was not then powerful enough to prevent this, even had it 
made the attempt, and the child of the Revolution, now a 
mighty nation, would have died in its cradle. 

Scattered broadcast by the party successors of Jefferson, 
these resolutions, like the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, 
sprang up armed men, armed for the destruction of the 
Republic. They embody a great political heresy, the doc- 
trine of state-sovereignty — not of state-rights — but of state- 
sovereignty, a distinction of incalculable importance. This 
heretical monster slew Jive hundred thousand of those people 
whom Jefferson professed to love so well, cost the nation 
three billions of treasure, burdened her with an enormous 
debt, beneath which she now groans, and suddenly set loose 



80 NOTES ON 

in our midst millions of ignorant, degraded beings, to dis- 
seminate among us vice, superstition, disease and crime. 
This monster's existence was incompatible with the existence 
of the nation, and he was doomed to death. He was ex- 
ecuted by the flaming sword of war, perished amid the 
thunders of battle, perished beyond the hope of resurrection. 
Sic semper hodibus patriae I Long live the Republic ! 

9. Mr. Jefferson thought it desirable that the Supreme 
Court should possess a veto power, similar to that of the 
President. 

10. He held that it was better for the welfare of the 
people to have newspapers without a government, than a 
government without newspapers. It seems incredible that a 
sane man could enunciate such a proposition, but in a letter, 
dated January 16th, 1787, written by him from Paris to Ed- 
ward Carrington, are these words : " Were it left to me to 
decide whether we should have a government without news- 
papers, or newspapers without a government, I should not 
hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. ," 

11. Jefferson approved and defended the Democratic 
clubs of his day. These clubs were not the harmless asso- 
ciations which in our time bear the same name. Washing- 
ton, in a letter to Burgess Ball, writes: "The Democratic 
Society of Philadelphia, from which the others have eman- 
ated, was instituted by Mr. Genet for the express purpose 
of dissension, and to draw a line between the people and 
the government, after he found that the officers of the latter 
would not yield to the hostile measures in which he would 

embroil them Can anything be more pernicious 

to the peace of society than self-constituted bodies, forming 
themselves into permanent censors, and under the shades 
of night resolving that acts of Congress are illegal and un- 
constitutional ? Such declarations, after Congress, the legally 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 81 

constituted legislative body of the country, had duly con- 
sidered and discussed any law are," he continues, " well 
calculated to disturb the public tranquillity." He further 
informs Mr. Ball that these societies proclaim that all who 
" vote contrary to their dogmas are actuated by selfish 
motives, or under foreign influence, nay, are traitors to 
their country." In his speech to the two Houses of Congress, 
after the suppression of the revolt in Pennsylvania, the 
President said : " Let the citizens determine whether it has 
not been fomented by combinations of men who, careless 
of consequences, have disseminated from an ignorance or per- 
version of facts, suspicions, jealousies and accusations of the 
whole government." To this part of the address the Senate 
thus responded : " Our anxiety, arising from the licentious 
and open resistance to the laws in the west counties of Penn- 
sylvania, has been increased by the proceedings of certain 
self-created societies, relative to the laws and administration 
of the government; proceedings, in our apprehension, 
founded in political error, calculated, if not intended, to 
disorganize our government, and which by inspiring delusive 
hopes of support, have been instrumental in misleading our 
fellow-citizens in the scene of the insurrection." Washing- 
ton afterwards wrote Mr. Jay that there could be no doubt 
in the mind of any one carefully examining the subject, that 
these clubs fomented and caused the insurrection, and, in 
another letter, predicted that, if not checked, they would des- 
troy the Republic. These clubs were modelled after the 
anarchical Jacobin clubs of France. One of them, the 
Madisonian of Charleston, was formally recognized as an 
affiliated branch of the Jacobin Club of Paris. The motion 
for this recognition was made by Col lot d' Herbois. These 
clubs, which were composed in great part of foreigners, and 
instituted by Genet for the purpose of involving the country 



82 NOTES ON 

in hostilities with England, which said Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, concealed, under the imposing garb of watchfulness 
over liberty, " designs subversive of all those principles 
which preserve the order, the peace and the happiness of 
society ; " which took for their model the Jacobin Club of 
Paris, and were patronized by d' Herbois, who, in one day, 
slew fifteen hundred innocent persons ; which, in the opinion 
of the President and the Senate, were responsible for the 
Whiskey Insurrection; which Washington declared would 
destroy the Republic ; these clubs, Jefferson approved and 
sustained. So much was he attached to them, that when 
the President ventured in his annual speech to suggest the 
propriety of imposing some restraint upon them, he flew 
into a fury, and asserted that the President had attacked 
" the freedom of discussion, and was guilty of an inexcusable 
aggression" After the death of Robespierre, the Con- 
vention expelled the Jacobin Club of Paris from its hall, 
and finally closed its doors. Mr. Monroe, then Minister at 
Paris, in the dispatch announcing this action of the Con- 
vention, expressed his approval of it. The suppression of 
the Paris club and Mr. Monroe's approval thereof, went 
far towards vindicating Washington's opinions respecting 
the Democratic clubs in this country. After the publica- 
tion of Mr. Monroe's dispatch, they lost their influence and 
soon ceased to assemble. As Justice Marshall said, the 
death of the Jacobin clubs was " the unerring signal " of 
the death of the Democratic societies, so closely were they 
allied — they were nourished from the same fountain of 
fanaticism, and dried up at the same time. 

12. He held that one generation has no power to bind 
the succeeding generation by law, or by contract. In a letter 
to Mr. Madison, dated September 6th, 1789, he sets forth 
his views on the subject in full. Here are some extracts 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 83 

from the letter : " The earth belongs in usufruct to the 
living; it is self-evident that the dead have neither power 
nor right over it. The portion occupied by any individual 
ceases to be his, when himself ceases to be, and reverts to 
the society." -" No man can by natural right oblige the lands 
he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupancy, 
to the payment of debts contracted by him." u The wife or 
children take the land free of debts." After some illus- 
trations, he proceeds : " Then, no generation can contract 
debts greater than can be paid during its own existence." 
He computes that a generation at twenty-one years of age, 
can contract for thirty-four years ; at twenty-two years of 
age, for thirty-three years, and so on. (This is a miscalcula- 
tion or oversight, the time is much shorter, as will appear 
further on.) " On similar grounds, it may be proved that 
no society can make a perpetual constitution, or a perpetual 
law. Every constitution, and every law naturally expires 
at the end of thirty-four years/' etc. The above theories 
were not youthful fancies, but settled convictions; for on 
June 24th, 1813, he writes to John W. Eppes : " Each gen- 
eration has the usufruct of the earth during its continuance; 
when it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeed- 
ing generation, free and unencumbered, and so on, forever." 
" Each generation," he thinks, " is a distinct nation," with 
no right to bind the succeeding generation, " more than the 
inhabitants of another country." " At nineteen years, then, 
from the date of a contract, the majority of the contractors 
are dead, and the contract with them." In a letter to Dr. 
Gem, he revises the computation made in the letter to Madi- 
son, and thus concludes: "Then, the contracts, constitution, 
and laics of every society become void in nineteen years from 
their date." On September 11th, 1813, he says, in so many 
words, that the State is not bound to pay the debts of a pre- 



84 NOTES OX 

ceding generation. From the foregoing, it would appear 
that Jefferson wished to introduce a sort of general Statute 
of Limitations, based on what he called natural justice, 
which would outlaw every obligation, private and public, at 
the expiration of nineteen years from its date, and annul 
every law after the lapse of nineteen years from its enact- 
ment. As by the laws of nature, the majority of men of 
legal age is replaced by a new majority of such men every 
nineteen years, no national or private contract, he taught, 
was valid beyond that length of time. This means that 
each generation shall inherit from its predecessors all the 
benefits and advantages of their skill, wealth, knowledge, 
and industry, but take none of their debts, burdens, or obli- 
gations, a doctrine which not only evinces a strange lack 
of gratitude, but is repugnant to both common sense, and 
common honesty. No wonder that Jefferson, in communi- 
cating this theory to Mr. Eppes, stated that the letter was 
for his eye only. 

13. Having reached the advanced position, that newspapers 
without governments are preferable to governments without 
newspapers, Mr. Jefferson had but a single step to take in 
order to attain the summit of political wisdom. This ex- 
alted position he assumed, when he thus wrote to Mr. Car- 
rington : " Those societies, (as the Indians) which live with- 
out government enjoy, in their general mass, an infinitely 
greater degree of happiness than those who live under the 
European governments. . . . Among them, public opinion 
restrains morals as powerfully as lares ever did anywhere" — 
Letter of January 16th, 1787. 

Here is a precious collection of political whimsicalities. 
Were it possible to reduce them to practice, they would de- 
stroy organized society, and substantially prevent the estab- 
lishment of government among- men. But what else than 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 85 

whimsicalities could be expected from one who proposed for 
the new States to be formed from the Northwest territory, 
the following names : Michigania, Chersonesia, Mesopo- 
tamia, Pelispia, Polypotamia, and Assenisipia? Though 
bold in speculation, Mr. Jefferson was irresolute, almost 
timid, in action ; he shrank from a trial of most of his po- 
litical theories. When he had an opportunity of testing 
some of his peculiar notions of government, he scarcely 
attempted to do so. Much of his reputation is due to the 
fact, that during his two Presidential terms, he made few 
innovations on the established order of things, but admin- 
istered public affairs pretty much as they had been admin- 
istered by the men whose measures he had denounced, and 
whose motives he had aspersed. 

Hamilton characterized Jefferson as " a man of subli- 
mated and paradoxical imagination, entertaining and propa- 
gating opinions inconsistent with dignified and orderly 
government." The words " sublimated and paradoxical" 
aptly describe his imagination, and, to a certain extent, are 
applicable to his whole mind. 

The more his theories of government are examined, the 
more clearly will it appear that he was a mere tyro in state- 
craft. He wandered in the vast and prolific field of political 
economy, and, like a child, plucked here and there a flower 
that pleased him, but he was almost entirely ignorant of 
the wise legislative husbandry, which causes that field to 
yield rich harvests of national strength and prosperity. 



86 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER XL 

ARE HIS "ANA" RELIABLE? 

Mr. Jefferson's own statements respecting them, raise 
doubts of their reliability. Three of these statements are 
as follows : 1 . " Twenty-five years or more from their dates, 
I have given the whole a calm revisal :" 2. " Some of the 
informations I had received, are now cut out from the rest, 
because I have seen that they w r ere incorrect or doubtful, or 
merely personal or private:" 3. "I should not, perhaps, 
have thought the rest worth preserving, but for the testi- 
mony against the only history of the period, that pretends 
to have been compiled from authentic and unpublished 
documents." These statements are found in the prefix or 
preface to the Ana. 

1. The revision was made in 1818, which date is but 
twelve years after the last entry in the Ana. In 1818, 
Jefferson was 75 years of age, and, therefore, not likely to 
have a clear recollection of what happened a quarter of a 
century previously. 2. The chief value of such writings 
as the Ana, is attributable to the fact that they are a sort of 
record of current events, made at the time they transpired, 
by one who participated in them. Transactions in which 
Mr. Jefferson took part, he certainly could relate more cor- 
rectly at or about their dates, than he could twenty-five 
years afterwards. He hardly revised the copies of his opin- 
ions, or the documents filed with them. A revisal of hi* 
reflections on certain men, or of his opinions of others, is 
not very important. 3. The Ana were preserved for a cer- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 87 

tain purpose, namely : To testify against Marshall's Life of 
Washington. It is known that Jefferson, besides being 
politically opposed to Marshall, heartily disliked him on 
account of his rulings in Burr's case, and that the ex-Presi- 
dent's party -prejudices were strong. Another statement, 
made in the prefix, is shown to be entirely incorrect, by a 
simple examination of the Ana themselves. The statement 
is that they contain copies of official opinions, submitted 
while Jefferson was in the cabinet, with " sometimes the 
documents in the case," and notes of transactions pertain- 
ing to his official duties as Secretary of State, whereas, they 
contain not only such papers as are mentioned, but his opin- 
ions of some of the prominent men of his period, anecdotes 
of others, accounts of cabinet meetings, incidents of the 
time, notices of events that occurred while he was Vice- 
President, and of some that happened when he was Presi- 
dent. Seven pages are devoted to Aaron Burr. All the 
entries respecting him are dated after Jefferson left the 
cabinet. In the prefix, it is recorded that John Adams 
" was for two hereditary branches of government, and one 
honest elective one." On July 29th, 1791, Adams wrote 
Jefferson. " If you suppose that I ever had a design, or a 
desire of attempting to introduce a government of Kings, 
Lords and Commons, or in other words an hereditary Ex- 
ecutive, or an hereditary Senate either into the government 
of the United States, or of any individual State, you are 
wholly mistaken." When the prefix contains such errors, 
can reliance be placed upon the Ana themselves? How 
much that was correct, did the revision eliminate? How 
much that was incorrect, did it insert ? How much was 
originally doubtful ? Under the date of January 26th, 
1804, the Ana contains an account of an interview of 
Aaron Burr with Jefferson. In it, he states that Burr 



88 NOTES ON 

" began by recapitulating rapidly that he had come to New 
York a stranger, some years ago," etc. Mr. M. L. Davis, 
in his Memoirs of Burr, commenting on this entry asks : 
" Now, who that knows the history of Colonel Burr's life, 
will believe one sentence, or one word of this statement?" 
Mr. Morse, in his life of Alexander Hamilton, characterizes 
the Alia as " A work as untrustworthy as it is interesting, 
a blunderbuss, which the aged man loaded to the very 
muzzle with garbled gossip, but carefully forbade to be 
discharged, until he himself had secured the safe refuge of 
the grave." 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 89 



CHAPTER XII. 

JEFFERSON AS GOVERNOR, IN TIME OF WAR. 

In the year 1780, while the English officer, Leslie, was 
threatening an incursion into the state of Virginia, Jeffer- 
son, then Governor, thought of resigning his office. Ed- 
mund Pendleton, having heard of this, wrote to a friend 
" It is a a little cowardly to quit our posts in these bustling 
times." By a despatch, dated December 9th, Washington 
informed Jefferson that a large British force, supposed to 
have a Southern destination, was about to sail from New- 
York. The course of military events, rendered it very 
probable that Virginia might at any moment be invaded. 
On December 29th, twenty- seven of the enemy's vessels 
entered the capes of Virginia, of which event Jefferson was 
next day apprised. The hostile fleet anchored at James- 
town, January 3d, 1781. On the 4th, a detachment of 
" 830 men and thirty horse," landed at Westover, and set 
out for Richmond, which they reached on the following 
day. Notwithstanding the notice, and the probability that 
an invasion was imminent, there was no force ready to op- 
pose their advance. There seems to have been no effort, 
even to ascertain the plans or watch the movements of the 
invaders, who were commanded by Arnold. All the avail- 
able militia having been ordered to Williamsburg, where 
they were useless, Arnold met with no resistance. He 
marched from Westover to Richmond, a distance of twenty- 
five miles, " without receiving a single shot." 

The Legislature dispersed at his approach, the Governor 



90 NOTES ON 

deserted Richmond under cover of night, and the city was 
thus left entirely at the mercy of the traitor. The Gov- 
ernor, charged with the defence of the State, and having 
reason to expect an invasion of it, made no defence, — fled 
from its defence. He admitted to Washington that " no 
opposition was in readiness/' The commander-in-chief, 
through Hamilton, answered : " It is mortifying to see so 
inconsiderable a party committing such extensive depreda- 
tions with impunity." Arnold seized the public stores at 
Richmond, destroyed the cannon foundry and burned a 
large quantity of tobacco, as well as many public and private 
buildings. General Henry Lee, in his History of the 
Southern War, says respecting this invasion: "It will 
scarcely be credited by posterity that the Governor of the 
oldest State in the Union and the most populous, should 
have been driven out of its metropolis and forced to secure 
personal safety by flight, and its archives with all its muni- 
tions and stores yielded to the invader, with the exception 
of a few, which accident, rather than precaution, saved from 
the common lot. Incredible as the narrative will appear, 
it is nevertheless true." After stating some of the injurious 
results of the Governor's flight, the General exclaims : 
" What ills spring from the timidity and impotence of 
rulers! In them, attachment to the common cause is vain 
and illusory, unless guided in times of difficulty by courage, 
wisdom and concert." — Vol. ii., pp. 6-14. 

Henry Lee, in his Observations, p. 133, says Jefferson 
"never faced the enemy, nor even observed him, and until 
he ascertained that Arnold had retreated to his ships, kept 
himself behind the current of a broad and unfordable river, 
flitting from place to place, hiding his guns to protect them 
from the 'heavy rains.' ' ; In a letter to General Muhlen- 
berg, the Governor unwittingly exposes the incompetency 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 91 

or the neglect of some one, by stating that Arnold, on his 
march to and from Richmond, might have been captured 
" with facility by men of enterprise and firmness." There 
were assuredly many such men in the State. Why were 
not some of them sent to capture him? Whose duty was 
it to send them ? After Arnold had returned to the fleet, 
Jefferson began to experience a strange longing for his 
seizure. It was this longing that prompted him to address 
the letter to Muhlenberg, to whom he further writes: "It 
is above all things desirable to drag him from those under 
whose wing he is now sheltered." It really seems that 
Jefferson, for the time being, believed that the capture of 
Arnold was the most desirable of all military achievements. 
He, certainly evinced more interest in regard to that, than 
he appears to have shown in regard to the defence of his 
native State. He asked General Muhlenberg to select for 
the capture men from " the Western side of the mountains," 
and gave him minute directions as to the projected enter- 
prise, some of which can scarcely be read without a smile. 
" The smaller the number," he remarks, " the better, so 
that they may be sufficient to manage him. Every neces- 
sary caution must be used on their part to prevent a dis- 
covery of their design by the enemy." He wished them to 
be informed that " their names will be recorded with glory in 
history with those of Van Wert, Paulding and Williams," and 
undertook to give them, if successful, five thousand guineas. 
This plan for the seizure of Arnold having failed, Jefferson 
devised a second one, in which he expected to have the 
assistance of Washington himself, and the whole French 
fleet. This magnificent scheme also proved abortive. When 
Arnold quitted the state, Cornwallis entered it. As the 
Governor had been occupying his own time, and wasting 
that of army officers with his fanciful schemes for seizing 



92 NOTES ON 

a single individual, Virginia was no better prepared to 
resist Cornwallis than she had been to repel the invasion of 
Arnold. In this extremity, Jefferson appealed to the com- 
mander-in-chief to come in person to defend his "own 
country." The appeal was in vain. Tarletou raided 
through the state at his pleasure, and came very near cap- 
turing the Governor, who made his escape from Monticello 
about ten minutes before the arrival of the foe. 

In 1780, Virginia had a militia of fifty thousand, thirteen 
thousand of whom had their homes adjacent to the seat of 
war. These men were not deficient in soldierly qualities. 
The soil of the state was productive, the climate genial. 
The Legislature had invested the Governor with extraordi- 
nary powers, and was ready to sustain him in the exercise 
of still greater power, should the public exigencies render it 
necessary. This was shown by the large vote in favor of a 
dictatorship. Many of the inhabitants were wealthy. How 
did Jefferson avail himself of these unusual advantage- for 
the successful discharge of the duties devolving upon him? 
We have seen that while he was Governor, his state was 
utterly powerless to repel even the small force commanded 
by Arnold. The veteran Steuben, then stationed in 
Virginia for the purpose of collecting and forwarding re- 
inforcements to General Greene, and at the same time 
aiding in her defence, was indignant that nothing was done 
to check the advance of that force. He reported that there 
was not a man, except those sent by himself, to oppose the 
progress of the invaders. He complains that the recruits 
gathered by him were not supplied with arms, declaring 
that even those at Richmond were sent away in such haste, 
on the approach of the enemy, that they could not be found. 
After repeated requisitions, made in vain, he ventured to 
suggest to the Governor that men without arms could only 



TH< >MAS .J EFFERS< >X. 93 

consume provisions. He lacked camp-kettles and tents, 
and recommended that some one he appointed, whose duty 
it should be to collect the scattered tents of the State. In 
one of his official letters, he stated that with all his importu- 
nities, he did not think he would have been able to equip a 
certain body of troops in six weeks, had not stores arrived 
from the Northward ; and that " nothing can begot from the 
State rather for want of arrangement, than anything else." In 
another, he asked to be recalled on account of his " ill suc- 
cess." When General Greene first saw the Virginia re- 
cruits, at Charlotte, December 6th, 1780, he wrote Jefferson : 
" Your troops may be said to be literally nuked, and I shall 
be obliged to send a considerable number of them away 

until they can be furnished with clothing No man 

will think himself bound to fight the battles of a State that 
leaves him to perish for want of clothing" General Muh- 
lenberg reported that he had two thousand men in camp, 
with but three hundred muskets, and that it was "deroga- 
tory to the honor of the State," that a mere handful of in- 
vaders should be suffered to remain so long within her 
borders, but, that without arms, he could do nothing. In a 
letter to Washington, dated February 10th, 1781, the Gov- 
ernor admitted a deficiency of 3188 men in Virginia's quota 
of troops. 

Why is it that in the years 1780, and 1781, Virginia, 
with her wealth, population, and resources, neither repelled 
hostile inroads upon her own territory, nor furnished her 
full contingent of troops to the Continental army? That 
she sent her men into the field poorly equipped and half 
clad? Baron Steuben indicated the answer to these ques- 
tions, when he reported that it was " rather for want of ar- 
rangement than anything else." Her Governor was deficient 
in executive ability; he was a good word-monger, but in 



94 NOTES ON 

action he failed. He asked Congress " particularly to aid us 
with cartridge-paper and boxes, the want of which, small 
as they are, renders our stores useless." What insufficiency 
does this reveal? Were there no persons in Virginia 
capable of making these "small" articles? If not, why 
were not competent men brought from the Northern cities ? 
Besides his want of executive ability, he was hampered 
by a sensitiveness, verging on timidity, that caused him 
to shrink from incurring the odium, that might result from 
a proper enforcement of the laws for putting Virginia 
in a state of defence. Money was essential for any eifort 
in that direction — it was not forthcoming. Jefferson ad- 
mitted that it could be obtained by force, but hesitated be- 
cause that, as he said, was " the most unpalatable of all 
substitutes." The laws empowered him to impress horses 
for the military service ; they were numerous in the State, 
but most of them belonged to the planters, whom 
Jefferson did not venture to offend, and the impressment 
languished. In consequence of this, when Cornwallis en- 
tered Virginia, he readily possessed himself of about a 
thousand fine horses. Thus, animals, that should have been 
employed in the service of the State or of the country, were, 
by mal-ad ministration, reserved, for the use of the enemy. 
The troops which Tarleton sent forward in advance to cap- 
ture the Governor at Monticello were, most probably, 
mounted on some of these very animals. Had he been 
taken prisoner, and escorted to British headquarters by men 
riding upon horses just seized by the enemy in Virginia, 
the event would have been a rude, but not entirely unde- 
served reminder of neglected duty. In answer to those 
who imputed to him inefficiency at this period, the Gover- 
nor pleaded that he was " unprepared by his line of life 
and education for the command of armies." 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 95 

Prescott, Knox, Howard, Lee, Greene, were not bred to 
arms, yet they and others, without a military education 
became distinguished officers in the war of the Revolution. 
But it was not necessary that he should " command armies." 
No one blamed him for declining to perform such service. 
It is admitted that many excellent men are utterly unsuited 
for military operations, and, no doubt, he was one of them. 
As Governor he should have encouraged, stimulated, and 
directed the citizens; he should have pointed out the ad- 
vantages to the common cause that would result from cour- 
age, energy, and activity, and the damage that would be 
inflicted upon that cause by indolence, apathy, and illiber- 
ally. He should have sought counsel of the best soldiers 
and the best civilians; he should have been diligent in sea- 
son and out of season ; vigilant in observing the move- 
ments of the foe ; careful that the management of every 
department of the public service was intrusted to the per- 
son best suited to administer it. He should have seen to it 
that the recruits were properly organized, armed, equipped, 
fed, and clothed, and made as comfortable as circumstances 
would permit, while in the State; he should, have despatched 
as rapidly as possible those of them destined for the Conti- 
nental army. These and similar duties were devolved upon 
him, in those stirring times, by his official position. It will 
hardly be asserted that he thoroughly performed any of 
them ; some of them he scarcely attempted to discharge. 
For example, Steuben writes Washington : " Since the Vir- 
ginia line was detailed to the Southern army, it was never 
regularly formed, nay, since I have been in the United 
States, it has never had a regular organization." But it is 
said that the voice of accusation in regard to these matters 
should be silenced by the exculpatory resolution of the Vir- 
ginia Legislature. Let us see. After the raid of Arnold, 



96 NOTES ON 

George Nicholas preferred charges against the Governor, 
touching his conduct and management of affairs during the 
raid. Owing to the dispersion of the Legislature, they were 
not then acted upon. At the next session, a committee was 
appointed, November 26th, 1781, " To state any charges, 
and receive such information as may be offered, respecting 
the administration of the late Executive." It will be per- 
ceived that the committee was not authorized to make any 
investigation. In the meantime, Jefferson had received a 
copy of the charges, and been elected to the House of Dele- 
gates. Soon after the organization of the House, he rose 
and stated that he was now ready to answer every accusation 
that might be brought against him. Mr. Nicholas was not 
present. No one spoke. Jefferson then read the charges 
against himself, or, more properly, the interrogatories which 
had been propounded to him in regard to his official action 
during the period mentioned above, and also the answers to 
them which he had prepared. There was no reply. The 
committee having reported that " no information being 
offered on the subject, except rumors, their opinion is that 
the rumors are groundless ; " the House, and subsequently 
the Senate, passed a resolution, not only exculpatory, but 
laudatory. A resolution thus passed was not a vindication 
— not an acquittal. How could there be an acquittal on 
certain charges, when there had been no investigation as to 
their truth or falsity ? The mere ipse dixit of the accused 
was accepted as a full answer to them. The issue of these 
proceedings may be accounted for on other grounds than a 
conviction of Jefferson's non-culpability. The surrender 
of Cornwallis, on October 19th, a few weeks before the 
report of the committee, removed all apprehension of other 
desolating invasions. It was the harbinger of peace. All 
hearts were aglow with the expectation of long-deferred 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 97 

independence. It was an era of good feeling. Why dis- 
turb the universal joy, by a prosecution that could accom- 
plish no good ? Why bring reproach upon a distinguished 
citizen, whose renown was part of the renown of the State? 
Moreover, a vote of censure upon the Executive, under the 
circumstances, would have been a reflection upon the Com- 
monwealth and its citizens. Possibly, too, some of the leg- 
islators who favored the resolution exculpating Mr. Jeffer- 
son, were prompted to this action by feelings similar to those 
of the Jews, who went out of the Temple one by one when 
the Saviour said : " He that is without sin among you, let 
him first cast a stone at her. 7 ' It is hardly to be expected 
that legislators, who had four times adjourned and dis- 
persed at the approach of the enemy, would very strongly 
condemn the Governor for being somewhat disconcerted by 
the proximity of the same disturbing cause. 

Though his friends assert that the resolution is a vindi- 
cation, the whole proceeding was very unsatisfactory to 
Jefferson himself. His reply to Mr. Monroe, who urged 
him to be present in the Assembly at its next session, shows 
his shame and humiliation, and admits his consciousness of 
public condemnation. In this reply, he writes, May 20th, 
] 782 : " Before I ventured to declare my determination to 
withdraw from public employment, I considered that I had 
even lost the small estimation I had before possessed." He 
could have borne the disapprobation of the people, he says, 
but that of their representatives was a shock on which he 
had not calculated. " But in the meantime," he continued, 
" I had been suspected in the eyes of the world, without 
the least hint . . . being made public, which might restrain 
them from supposing that I stood arraigned for treason of 
the heart, and not merely weakness of the head ; and I felt 
that these injuries had inflicted a wound on my spirit which 



98 NOTES ON 

will only be cured by the all-healing grave." It is not the 
" integrity " of Jefferson that is here in question, nor is it 
his "ability," both of which are lauded in the resolution; 
it is his inefficiency of which complaint is made. The evi- 
dence of this inefficiency is too strong to be brushed away 
by any resolutions of a sympathizing assembly, least of all 
by a resolution adopted under the circumstances above de- 
tailed. Some of this evidence has been presented. Here 
is more. Colonel Meade, a Virginian, who had been on 
Washington's staff', but who was in his native State when 
Arnold made his incursion, declared that it was a " shame" 
that the traitor escaped so easily. In regard to that event, 
the Colonel further wrote : " The misfortune, in the present 
invasion, was that in the confusion the arms were sent every- 
where, and no timely plan laid to put them into the hands 
of the men who were assembling." General Greene, towards 
the close of 1780, writes: "The numerous militia which 
have been kept on foot (in Virginia) have laid waste almost 
all the country, and the policy, if persisted in, must in a 
little time, render it almost impracticable to support a regular 
body of troops sufficient to give protection and security to 
the State. The expenses attending this business in the 
waste of stores exceeds all belief." General Steuben, having 
selected four hundred picked men as a reinforcement for 
General Greene, was surprised at receiving a paper " signed 
by the officers, complaining of the ill-usage by the State, 
and of the distressed condition of officers and men, and 
concluding that until something was done for them, they 
would not think of marching." These men were the " best 
provided " of Muhlenburg's corps. — Steuben's Letter of De- 
cember 4th, 1780. 

On December 18th, the Baron informs the commander- 
in-chief that, although many of the " abuses," which kept 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 99 

so many men from the field, had been abolished in the 
Northern army/' in the Virginia line they have reached 
their highest pitch. . . . The officers do not care for the 
soldiers, and they scarcely know the officers who have to 
command them. . . . This State, having only a handful of 
regulars in the field, is continually ransacked by bands of 
officers and soldiers, who are drawing pay and rations for 
doing no service at all, while they are committing excesses 
everywhere." In May, 1781, Stenben complains that 
" only two men have been employed by the State for the 
reparation of arms since January." On May 23d, Lafay- 
ette, then in Richmond, writes to Hamilton : " General 
Greene has directed me to take command in this State. It 
then became my duty to arrange the departments, which I 
found in the greatest confusion and relaxation; nothing 
can be obtained, and yet expenses are enormous. . . . Gov- 
ernment wants energy, and there is nothing to enforce the 
laws/' On May 5th, General Greene reported that the 
two thousand men promised to him from Virginia, and 
anxiously expected, were still delayed, and expressed fears, 
based upon information received, that but few of them 
would in the end join him. Later, the same General wrote 
to Jefferson himself: " The tardiness, and finally the coun- 
termanding the militia ordered to join this army, have been 
attended with the most mortifying and disagreeable conse- 
quences." For the actual " countermanding " Jefferson is 
not responsible, but he is responsible for the shameful tardi- 
ness, without which it would not have been possible. 

In March, 1781, there were in General Muhlenberg's 
camp but eight rounds of ammunition to each man, and 
provisions for four days. Towards the end of May, the 
discontent of the public mind with the existing state of 
affairs became so serious, that the project of a dictator for 

LOFC 



100 NOTES ON 

Virginia was defeated in the Assembly by only a few votes. 
Would nearly all the members of the Legislature have con- 
curred in the opinion that such an extraordinary expedient 
was necessary, if the government of the State had heretofore 
been properly administered ? If no blame attached to him 
who then was Governor, if he had done all that was possible 
under the circumstances, if his past official conduct had in- 
spired confidence, why did not they who favored a dictator- 
ship, recommend that he be entrusted with unlimited power ? 
Why was the name of Patrick Henry on the lips of the 
people ? No one thought of Jefferson for the post. Mr. 
Girardin says : " To introduce this officer, it was necessary 
to place Mr. Jefferson hors de combat" Mr. Randall, his 
biographer, states that " all the misfortunes of the period 
were charged upon him" (Jefferson). On June 3d, Steuben 
reports that the men under his command, over five hundred 
in number, had neither shoes nor shirts; that they were 
perishing in the wilderness without sufficient clothing to 
permit them to drill; that he had received arms from Phila- 
delphia, but not a cartridge-box or a saddle was in store; 
that he did not believe a single article of either kind could 
be procured in Virginia, though the first is as essential to a 
foot-soldier as the last is to a mounted man, and he had 
several times given notice that they were required. Mr. 
Wirt (Life of Patrick Henry) states that the period under 
consideration was one of " almost hopeless darkness, when 
the energies of the State seem to have been pretty nearly 
paralyzed." 

Such was the condition of the proud and populous 
Commonwealth at the end of Jefferson's two years' admin- 
istration. It cannot be said that her resources had been 
consumed by the fires of war, for she had hardly begun to 
be the theatre of military operations. Her condition was 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 101 

traceable to other causes. The impotence mentioned by 
Lafayette, the negligence, mismanagement, and other 
"abuses/ 7 of which Steuben, that faithful and energetic 
soldier, had often, but vainly complained, had done their 
work. The prediction of the sagacious Greene in regard to 
a certain policy was verified. 

Mr. Jefferson appropriately closed his gubernatorial career 
by retiring to Monticello, and virtually abandoning the 
government, at a time when charges against him for official 
misconduct were pending, and when, in the language of 
Mr. Benjamin Harrison, "an implacable enemy was roam- 
ing at large in the very bowels of the State." When Jef- 
ferson, as Governor in time of war, is compared with some 
of the famous "War Governors" of our day, his inferiority 
strikingly appears.* 

* For some facts and references in this note, the writer is indebted to 
Hamilton's History of the Republic. 



102 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER XIII. 



HIS INDIRECTNESS. 



RIETHMULL.ER, in his Life and Times of Hamilton, states 
that Jefferson, when a boy at school, was in the habit of 
putting forward other boys to ask for what he wanted. 
This indirectness, this desire to avoid personal responsibility, 
which characterized the child, was apparent in the man. 
Though he organized and long controlled a great political 
party, he never mounted the hustings to explain or defend 
its tenets: he issued no pamphlets or open letters ; he con- 
tributed no article to magazine or newspaper in advocacy 
of his own doctrines, or in refutation of those of his political 
opponents. Mr. Hildreth, in his history, rightly observes 
that Jefferson was, perhaps, the only prominent man of his 
time, who " never touched pen to paper for the political 
enlightenment of the contemporaneous public." The bril- 
liant success which he achieved for himself and his party, 
w 7 as won by the agency of others. He was the most skilful 
political " wire-puller " of his day. But he was much 
more. He was au efficient organizer ; he possessed great 
tenacity of purpose. The stirring words, too, which he 
addressed, through his subalterns, to his adherents, were 
bugle-calls to battle. He so finely portrayed the beauties 
and the blessings of Republicanism, so strongly denounced 
those friends of monarchial institutions who, he pretended, 
were striving to overthrow it, that the hearts of his partisans 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 103 

glowed with enthusiam for the good cause, and with indig- 
nation against its enemies. 

He might with propriety have been styled the commander- 
in-chief of the Republicans, but for the fact that he never 
appeared at the head of his forces. When Hamilton, over 
the signatures of " Metellus" and " An American," "pointed 
out the inconsistency of a man's remaining a prominent 
menober of an administration, whose measures he was op- 
posing, Jefferson called upon Mr. Madison to reply. This 
fact, standing alone, would excite no surprise, for Jefferson 
was well aware that, in an open controversy, he was no 
match for his great rival, whom he calls " a colossus to the 
anti-Republican party," and a a host within himself." It 
is, however, strange, that he made no answer to any of the 
personal attacks upon himself in the press, which were both 
numerous and bitter. He either induced some one else to 
repel such assaults, or vented his wrath in letters to friends, 
and awaited a convenient opportunity for punishing the 
offender. No private or political reasons overcame his 
resolution not to appear in the newspapers. The publica- 
tion in this country of the Mazzei letter, which every one 
attributed to' Jefferson, seemed imperatively to demand a 
public explanation from him, but none was made. He was 
most hostile to the Jay treaty, earnestly desired to prevent 
its ratification ; but instead of writing strong articles in 
opposition to it, he entreated Madison " for God's sake take 
up your pen, and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and 
Camillus." 

The pen of this gentleman, over whom he acquired great 
influence, was often invoked, and several times placed at 
his service. 

Jefferson did not meet his political foes face to face in 



104 NOTES ON 

manly combat. He assailed them in private letters, to be 
used by those to whom they were addressed. In these 
letters, he rarely attempted to show that the dogmas of the 
Federalists were erroneous, or to expose the fallacy of their 
arguments. He hurled epithets at them; ascribed to them 
unworthy motives and ulterior designs; or charged them 
with actual misconduct. So cautious was he, that these im- 
putations and charges were seldom made in direct terms. 
They were involved in circumlocution, suggested, insinu- 
ated. In this prudent work of insinuation he excelled ; it 
was congenial to his nature. 

He could blast a man's character in a letter with such 
subtlety, that with the paper before you, you could scarcely 
point out a specific sentence to denounce as false or slander- 
ous. A passage in one of his letters to Washington, refer- 
ring to Hamilton's objection to the appointment of Freneau 
as translator in the State Department, will serve as a speci- 
men of Jefferson's insinuated slanders. He therein declared 
that he never could have " imagined that the man who has 
the shuffling of millions backwards and forwards from 
paper into money, and money into paper, from Europe to 
America, and America to Europe ; the dealing out of trea- 
sury secrets among his friends in what time and manner he 
pleases, and who never slips an occasion of making friends 
with his means," would have founded a charge on the 
appointment mentioned. Jefferson's life furnishes some 
remarkable instances of shrinking from responsibility for 
one's own opinions. Having drawn up the Resolutions of 
1798, he communicated them to Mr. Nicholas, with the 
request, that the name of the author should not be revealed. 
When he wrote his famous letter to Dr. Rush respecting 
religion, he desired the Doctor not to give it publicity. 



THOM AS J E F F E RS( )N, 



105 



When he imparted to Madison his wild theory of a general 
bankruptcy, and a recommencement of national financial 
operations every nineteen years, he urged Madison to pro- 
mulgate it as his own, because he occupied a high " station 
in the councils of his nation," and intimated that his fine 
logical powers might win for it popular approbation. 



106 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER XIV. 



JEFFERSON AND GENET. 



The official conduct of Mr. Genet, while Minister to the 
United States, is probably without a parallel in the history 
of diplomacy. He abused the President, and openly ex- 
pressed disdain of his authority. He intimated that Wash- 
ington, in his course towards the French ambassador, was 
instigated by foreign influence, told him that in a certain 
contingency he should have awaited the action of Congress ; 
declared that he had in several instances transcended his 
powers — that he did not represent the people; charged him 
with violating the laws of his country, the law of nations, 
and the treaties of the United States. He gave instructions 
to the President respecting his duties, and on the interpre- 
tation of international law. He asked the discharge, at 
once, of the whole debt owed by this country to France, 
which was, by agreement, payable in instalments. When 
informed that such payment was impracticable, Genet greatly 
incensed, retorted that this refusal "tended to accomplish 
the infernal system of the king of England and of the other 
kings, his accomplices, to destroy by famine French free- 
men and French freedom/' and that our government was 
guilty of " a cowardly abandonment of their friend, France, 
in her hour of danger." He complained that he "had met 
with nothing but disgust and obstacles in the negotiations 
with which he had been charged." He threatened forcible 
resistance should the United States attempt, in a certain 
matter, to assert their supremacy over their own territory. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 107 

He informed the President that his country was indebted 
to France for its independence. 

There was in his official communications an assumption 
of superiority, peculiarly offensive. His insolence reached 
its climax in a letter to the Secretary of State, dated July 
25th, 1793, wherein he thus writes: "In vain does the 
thirst of riches preponderate over honor in the political bal- 
ance of America, All this condescension, all this humility 
ends in nothing ; our enemies laugh at it. And the French, 
too confiding, are punished for having believed that the 
American notion hod a flag — that they had some respect for 
their laws, some conviction of their strength, and entertained 
some sentiment of dignity." Such an insulting document was 
never delivered by an ambassador to the government to which 
he was accredited. Genet did not offend in words alone. His 
acts were, if possible, characterized by more arrogance and 
audacity than his letters. Soon after his arrival at Charles- 
ton, he began fitting out in our seaports privateers, to prey 
upon the commerce of Great Britain, a nation with which 
we were at peace. Without asking permission, he estab- 
lished in our maritime towns pretended Courts of Admi- 
ralty, presided over by French consuls, for condemning 
and selling as prizes, English or Spanish vessels, captured 
by the cruisers of France. He enlisted men, native and 
foreign-born, to serve under the flag of his country, post- 
ing in various cities, even in the Federal capital, placards 
calling for recruits for the French army; he issued some 
three hundred blank commissions, as invitations to Ameri- 
cans to man privateers or enter the French navy. He 
organized secret clubs, to aid him in his nefarious meas- 
ures, and persuade our people to sympathize and cooperate 
with him in his opposition to the government. He at- 
tempted to arm and equip within our borders, expeditions 



108 NOTES ON 

for the invasion of Florida and Louisiana. When re- 
minded by the President that these proceedings were con- 
trary to the comity of nations, and some of them positive 
violations of international law, as well as of our own laws, 
he replied that he was familiar with these laws, and the 
President was mistaken ; this too, although Vattel states 
that "The man who undertakes to enlist soldiers in a 
foreign country, without the sovereign's permission, vio- 
lates the most sacred rights of the prince and the nation. 
This crime is punished with the utmost severity, in every 
well-regulated state. Foreign recruiters are hanged with- 
out mercy" Finding remonstrance in vain, the President 
began to take action proper to vindicate the sovereignty of 
the nation. Upon this, Genet threatened to ignore the 
legally constituted authorities, and appeal directly to the 
people. 

The despatch of the Little Democrat to cruise as a 
privateer, was the most outrageous transaction of Genet. 
This vessel, originally British, had been captured, brought 
into our waters, and condemned as a prize by one of his 
improvised Admiralty Courts. He bought her, changed her 
armament from two to fourteen guns, fitted her out, and 
commissioned her as a privateer. These things were done 
at Philadelphia, the capital of the nation, under the very 
eye of the government, in undisguised contempt of its au- 
thority, after he had been informed that such proceedings 
were offensive and not allowable. Jeiferson saw 7 Genet and 
asked him to delay the departure of the vessel until a cer- 
tain day ; he would make no promise, but said she would 
not be ready by the day indicated, thus leaving the impres- 
sion that she would not sail before the time specified. The 
President extended international etiquette so far, as to ex- 
press to Genet the wish that he would detain her until her 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 109 

case, and other similar ones, then under consideration by 
the cabinet, should be decided. Notwithstanding this con- 
descension, on the part of Washington, Genet permitted the 
Little Democrat to put to sea, without according to our 
Executive the poor courtesy, due unasked, of awaiting an 
official examination of the important questions, legal and 
diplomatic, pertaining to her capture, sale, and new equip- 
ment. He did this, moreover, when he knew that the 
President had reason to believe from Jefferson's account of 
his interview, that the vessel would not sail before the time 
mentioned ; when he was aware that assurances had been 
given to Great Britain, that the fitting out by the French 
in our harbors of privateers to operate against her mer- 
chantmen should cease, and at a time when he was detain- 
ing two English vessels, unlawfully captured, the restora- 
tion of which the President had demanded. But what 
cared he for the embarrassment that he occasioned the 
Government? His real purpose was to force this country 
into hostilities with England, and he was ready to employ 
whatever means were necessary to accomplish that purpose. 
The state of affairs which Genet and his abettors had 
brought about in June, 1793, has been thus vividly de- 
picted : " The United States presented an extraordinary 
spectacle. In each of their great seaports were seen tri- 
colored ensigns floating aloft above the American standards. 
French ships of battle moved so as to command their feeble 
batteries. The American coast lined with privateers plun- 
dering their unprotected commerce. Cruisers of their ally 
roaming on the high seas, commissioned to capture any neu- 
tral vessel freighted with the great staples of the country 
for their accustomed marts. An intestine party, banded 
together and rallying against their government, tendering 
homage to a foreign minister, after his known insults to the 



110 SOTES ON 

President ; that minister rebuking; Washington as a violator 
of the laws, dictating to him his duty, appearing to divide 
with him the affections of the people ; the cabinet in dis- 
cord ; the powers of the Chief Magistrate apparently ready 
to fall from his hands." Where stood Jefferson at this 
epoch ? What was his attitude in this hour of his country's 
trial ? Was he on the side of Washington, or on that of the 
French minister? Officially, as Secretary of State, he 
replied to the arrogant letters of Genet, and pointed out 
the illegality of his transactions in dignified and fitting 
terms. This he did, at the request of the President, but in 
the cabinet meetings, he opposed a demand for the restora- 
tion of vessels captured by privateers fitted out in our ports. 
He opposed the forcible detention of such privateers, after 
Genet had been notified that they must not put to sea ; he 
opposed the publication of the correspondence between Genet 
and our government ; he opposed the transmission of a 
statement of Genet's proceedings to Mr. Morris, to be laid 
before the French National Convention ; he opposed the 
making of a demand for the recall of the obnoxious 
minister. In fact, he heartily favored none of the impor- 
tant measures, which were resorted to in order to check the 
mad career of this haughty and overbearing foreigner. 
There was one exception — he approved the Proclamation 
of Neutrality. He would have been more consistent had 
he opposed this also. After the proclamation was issued, 
Hamilton wrote a series of articles in explanation and de- 
fence of it, whereupon Jefferson entreated Madison to 
answer Hamilton and attack it. Madison thus urged, at- 
tacked both the form and substance of the proclamation, 
that the Secretary of State had approved i)i the cabinet. 

When Washington received Genet coldly, he repaired to 
Jefferson, who listened patiently to the story of his alleged 



THOMAS JEFFEKSON. Ill 

grievances, and to his complaints against those ungrateful, 
unworthy Americans, who hesitated to jeopardize everything 
in aid of a sister Republic ; endeavored to sooth and pacify 
him, professed to be his friend, talked to him, no doubt, of 
tyrants and aristocrats, of equality and fraternity, and sent 
him away encouraged to persevere in his evil ways. The 
Democratic journals, too, espoused his cause. The National 
Gazette, Jefferson's mouth-piece, took the lead in this un- 
patriotic work. It declared that the French minister was 
" too accomodating for the sake of the peace of tlie United 
States." In one of its articles, respecting enlistment in the 
French service, was the following violent passage : " Thanks 
be to God, the sovereignty still resides with the people, and 
neither proclamations, nor royal demeanor and state can 
prevent them from exercising it." Another article pro- 
claimed that Genet had as much right to appeal to the 
people as the President had; that his interpretation of our 
treaty with France was as good as the President's, and that 
the people must ultimately interpret it. The key-note of 
this French music, performed on Jefferson's organ, was struck 
by himself in a private letter to Madison, written in April, 
when Genet's advent was expected. The minister's arrival, 
he wrote, would " furnish occasion for the people to testify 
their affection without the cold caution of the Government." 

Such, for some time, was the course, and such the atti- 
tude of Jefferson, and of those under his influence, towards 
the man, who again and again "flung full defiance in the 
face" of the administration, of which Jefferson was prime 
minister ; who, as he himself tells us, was " disrespectful, 
even indecent to the President " [Letter to Madison, Jidy 
1th), and who had committed offences, the penalty of which, 
according to Yattel, was death. And when, at last, he 
assented to the demand for Genet's recall, this assent was 



112 NOTES ON 

given not because Genet's conduct to Washington had been 
" indecent/' not because he had contemned the authority of 
the government, and trampled upon the law of nations, not 
because he had in his letter of July 25th insulted the whole 
American people, or because he had endeavored to embroil 
us with England, but because the rising flood of public 
indignation against the minister threatened to overwhelm 
the Democratic party, and, with it, the Secretary of State. 

When it was noised abroad that the impudent Frenchman 
had insulted Washington, and even intended to disown 
entirely the government of which he was the head, the 
affection of the people for their venerated President mani- 
fested itself in an unmistakable manner. Jefferson quickly 
trimmed his sails for the popular breeze by cutting loose 
from Genet, and acquiescing in a measure which, thereto- 
fore, he had stoutly opposed. In a confidential letter to 
Madison, dated August 11th, he says : " I believe it will be 
true wisdom in the Republican party to approve unequivo- 
cally of a state of neutrality, to avoid little cavils about 
who shall declare it ; to abandon Genet entirely, with ex- 
pressions of strong friendship and adherence to his nation, 
and confidence that he has acted against their sense. In 
this way, we shall keep the people on our side by keeping our- 
selves in the right. ... I adhered to him because I knew 
what weight we should derive to our side, by keeping in it the 
love of the people for the French cause and nation. Finding 
at length that the man was incorrigible, I saw the necessity of 
quitting a wreck, that ivoidd sink all who should cling to it" 

The motive that prompted Jefferson to adhere to Genet, 
and to desert him, was apparently the same, a desire to pro- 
mote the success of his party, and not concern for the public 
welfare. The letter asking the recall of Genet was an able 
and convincing paper, severely arraigning him for his mis- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 113 

deeds. When be learned that Jefferson was the author of 
it, he was much angered, and addressed to the Secretary a 
spirited epistle. In it he stated that certain persons in the 
United States, often mentioned to him as royalists, oppo- 
nents of popular rights, and Anglo-men, had determined to 
thwart him in his laudable effort to unite the two Republics 
in resistance to tyrants, by demanding his recall. He up- 
braided Jefferson, for permitting himself to be the generous 
instrument of these enemies of liberty, in their designs 
against him, " after he had pretended to be his friend, after 
he had initiated him into mysteries, which have inflamed his 
hatred against all those who aspire to arbitrary power." He 
said, further, that if he had expressed his desires and pur- 
poses to the American Government with too much boldness, 
he had thus erred because " it was not in his character to 
speak, as many people do, in one way, and to act in another ; 
to have an official language, and a language confidential" 



114 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER XV. 

JEFFERSON AS A DEMAGOGUE. 

One of the peculiarities, that distinguished Jefferson from 
most of the prominent men of his time, was the zeal with 
which he pursued popularity. Some of his eminent con- 
temporaries doubtless prized highly the respect and esteem 
of their fellow-citizens, but Jefferson, more assiduously than 
any of them, employed the means best calculated to win the 
favor of the multitude. Though the assistance received by 
this country from France during our Revolution, was ren- 
dered by King Louis XVL, at his own royal will and 
pleasure, Jefferson, after he began his quest for popularity, 
always spoke of our debt of gratitude to the French people, 
as if they, and not the King, had aided us in our hour of 
need and peril. He complained that Washington, in his 
dress, equipages, and receptions, assumed the trappings of 
royalty, and denounced these things as unrepublican. He 
wished all ceremony at the " Executive House'' discon- 
tinued ; he seldom rode in a carriage, except on long jour- 
neys — that mode of conveyance was too aristocratic; he 
went to his inauguration on horseback, and humbly hitched 
his own horse.* He was ever flattering the people, praising 
their purity and their good sense, prating about their rights, 
and charging with a design to invade their liberty, men 

* Travels for four and a half years, in the United States, by John 
Davis. London, 1803. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 115 

who had achieved that liberty, while he was begging their 
help, or fleeing from the enemy. He insisted that Wash- 
ington, Hamilton, and others were intent upon establish- 
ing a monarchy, while he and his followers, especially 
himself, were engaged in a desperate struggle against such 
a perversion of the government, thus inducing the ignorant 
masses, for ignorance was then general, to believe that he 
was their defender and champion, ever battling to save 
them from the tyranny of a king, from being thrust back 
into the thraldom, from which they had just been delivered. 
How adroit, and how unprincipled ! He led the people to 
believe, too, that the Federalists were attempting to thwart 
"the popular will." He accused Hamilton of corruption 
in office, pretended he was under British influence. He said 
that all titles, including Excellency, Honor, Worship, the 
harmless Esquire, even the unoffending Mister, were incon- 
sistent with Republican simplicity, and should be abolished. 
He perceived the superiority of the English Government 
and institutions of his time over those of France. He well 
knew the impurity of the social life of the French ; he was 
convinced that there was little domestic happiness among 
them, that conjugal love was blasted by the fires of passion, 
that in consequence of the prevailing corruption, the educa- 
tion of young Americans in France was not desirable, and 
wrote these facts to his friends ; but he persuaded the people 
that he was the special admirer of everything pertaining to 
France, and thus availed himself of American affection for 
that country. Observing the popular antipathy to royalty, 
he execrated kings and monarchies in general, and wished 
them swept from the face of the earth. Yet he recom- 
mended the continuance of royalty in France. He said 
that most of the European nations were unfit for popular 
government, but raged against the slightest tendency to 



116 NOTES ON 

kingly authority, or any appearance thereof in this country. 
In this way, he played upon the self-love of his fellow- 
citizens by implying that they were fit for a democratic 
government, and secured their votes. 

The following extract from a letter to Mr. Gerry, of 
Massachusetts, will illustrate Jefferson's method of flattering 
the multitude, and depreciating the leaders of the party 
opposed to him : " But the people will rise again. They 
will awake like Samson from his sleep, and carry away the 
gates and posts of the city. You, my friend, are destined 
to rally them again under their former banners. The people 
will support you, notwithstanding the howlings of the rav- 
enous crew from whose jaws they are escaping. It will be 
a great blessing to our country, if we can once more restore 
harmony and social love among its citizens. It is almost 
the first object of my heart. With the people I have hopes 
of effecting it. But their coryphcei are incurables. I ex- 
pect little from them." Instead of discouraging the unrea- 
sonable hatred of England, entertained by the vulgar, he 
endeavored to turn it to account, by insulting the British 
envoy, Mr. Merry. That gentleman had not in any manner 
wronged him ; and merely as a well-bred stranger, to say 
nothing of diplomatic etiquette, was entitled to courteous 
treatment. But on the occasion of his formal presentation, 
by the Secretary of State, to Jefferson, then President, the 
latter received him in slippers down at the heels, with coat, 
pantaloons, and undergarments indicative of utter sloven- 
liness, and indifference to appearances — in a state of negli- 
gence, that seemed actually " studied." This Mr. Merry 
states in a communication to Josiah Quincy. One can 
imagine how this reception of the British minister, as well 
as Jefferson's designation of all kings as " vermin," de- 
lighted the populace of that time. Finally, he taught that 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 117 



insurrections should be lightly dealt with, lest the people 
be discouraged in their efforts to maintain their liberties. 
By such devious ways, and such ignoble devices did Mr. 
Jefferson court popular favor. In view of them, " Tom " 
Moore can almost be pardoned for writing of him : 

" Inglorious soul, 
Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control, 
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod."' 



118 NOTES OK 



CHAPTER XVI. 

JEFFERSON AND BURR. 

On June 17th, 1797, Jefferson wrote to Aaron Burr as 
follows : " Perhaps some general views of our situation 
and prospects, since you left (Philadelphia), may not be 
unacceptable. At any rate, my letter will give me an op- 
portunity of recalling myself to your memory, and of evi- 
dencing my esteem for you." On December 15th, 1800, 
Jefferson thus addressed him : " I feel most sensibly the 
loss we sustain of your aid in our new administration. It 
leaves a chasm in my arrangements which cannot be ade- 
quately filled. I had endeavored to compose an adminis- 
tration whose talents, integrity, names, and dispositions, 
should at once inspire unbounded confidence in the public 
mind, and insure a perfect harmony in the conduct of the 
public business." He concludes this letter with " affection- 
ate salutations." His esteem for Burr had now ripened 
into affection. On February 1st, 1801, he sent Burr a 
manuscript missive in regard to a letter alleged to have been 
written by Jefferson to Judge Breckenridge, in which were 
expressions highly injurious to Burr. In this missive, he 
pronounces this alleged letter a forgery, declares that he 
never wrote to the Judge a sentiment unfriendly or disre- 
spectful to Burr, and, again assuring the latter of his esteem 
and respect, warns him against those wicked men who 
would " sow tares between us." He closes in these terms : 
" A mutual knowledge of each other furnishes us with the 
best test of the contrivances which will be practiced by the 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 119 

enemies of us both." These extracts from Mr. Jefferson's 
letters leave no doubt as to his opinion of the person to 
whom they were addressed. From them we learn that he 
esteemed, respected, and admired Burr ; that he confided in 
his integrity ; that their relations were those of friends. On 
turning to Jefferson's Ana, we find under date of January 
26th, 1804, these entries : " I had never seen Colonel Bun- 
til 1 he became a member of the Senate. His conduct soon 
inspired me with distrust. I habitually cautioned Mr. 
Madison against trusting him too much." " He was always 
at market, if they had wanted him." On April 20th, 1807, 
Jefferson wrote his friend, William B. Giles : " I never, in- 
deed, thought Burr an honest, frank-dealing man." There 
is certainly a surprising, not to say startling, contrast be- 
tween Jefferson's three letters to Burr, and the private 
memoranda above cited ; between what Jefferson wrote to 
Burr, and what he wrote of Burr. It may be alleged in 
explanation of this contrast, that the memoranda were made 
three years after the date of the last letter to Burr, and that, 
in the interval, Jefferson had, for sufficient cause, changed 
his opinion in regard to Burr's character. This explana- 
tion will not avail for two reasons: First. — When Jefferson 
wrote to Burr the letter last mentioned, they had been ac- 
quainted for ten years, since Burr entered the Senate in 
1791. As Jefferson was Secretary of State w 7 hile Burr was 
Senator, and as they belonged to the same political party, it 
is almost certain that they were frequently thrown together. 
An acquaintance of ten years, under such circumstances, 
must have enabled each to form a pretty accurate estimate 
of the other's character. Second — Jefferson, in the Ana, 
states that he began to distrust Burr soon after the latter 
became Senator, and from the letter to Mr. Giles, we 
learn that Jefferson never thought Burr an honest, frank- 



120 NOTES ON 

dealing man. It appears then, from Jefferson's own writ- 
ings, that he entertained the same opinion of Burr when 
he wrote the three letters, as he did when he made the entry 
in the Ana. How shall Mr. Jefferson escape from the di- 
lemma of self-contradiction, in which his letters to Burr, 
his Ana, and his Giles letter place him ? Did he really 
purpose calling to his cabinet, as one of his confidential 
advisers on great questions of national policy, a man, upon 
whom he habitually cautioned one of his friends not to 
place too much reliance? Did the sage of Monticello in- 
deed feel an affection for one whom he never thought hon- 
est ? Did he wish to secure and preserve the friendship of 
a person whom he distrusted ? Or were all these professions 
of esteem, and regard, and affection insincere, and intended 
merely to secure the aid of Burr's talents and influence in 
promoting the success of Jefferson's own schemes? That 
they were so intended, may be inferred from the circum- 
stances under which the letters to Burr were written, from 
their language, from the habits of the writer, and from the 
political history of the time. 

A brief examination of these letters, in connection with 
the entries in the Ana, respecting Burr, and with Jeffer- 
son's subsequent treatment of him, will reveal some of the 
methods employed by Jefferson in the management of, his 
personal and party interests, and thus throw light on his 
real character. Note that Jefferson was not in the habit of 
writing to Burr ; indeed, it is not a little remarkable, that 
the three letters mentioned are the only letters to him found 
in Jefferson's published correspondence, voluminous as it is. 
Note that neither of them was written in reply to a verbal 
or written communication from Burr, or at the instance of 
another person. Note that the first letter begins with a 
wish to be recalled to Burr's recollection, and to express 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 121 

esteem for him. It is not unreasonable to suppose that a 
letter opening thus, and written on the writer's own motion, 
to one with whom he had never before corresponded, indi- 
cates the writer's desire for some favor from the person so 
addressed. Was there, in this case, a favor desired ? And 
if so, what was it ? When the letter was written Jefferson 
was Vice- President under John Adams, President, whom it 
was generally believed a Republican would succeed. Jeifer- 
son was a very prominent Republican. He had been men- 
tioned as a candidate for the succession. He had aspirations 
for the Presidency. As early as 1794, he wrote to Mr. 
Madison of "double delicacies" on that subject, which had 
prevented him from expressing himself freely to the latter. 
He knew that the electoral votes of New York were almost 
indispensable to secure his election. He knew also that 
Burr was the man most powerful in controlling those votes. 
He was, of course, anxious to secure the cooperation of one 
so influential, in advance of all competitors. Under these 
circumstances, he penned the first letter to Burr, flattering 
him, inquiring particularly after his health, expressing seri- 
ous apprehensions for the safety of " our Republican Govern- 
ment," and indirectly asking a reply, by expressing the 
wish that he could give the writer some solution of his 
" painful and doubtful questions," concerning the dangers 
that menaced the Republic. Can it be doubted that this 
letter was written for the purpose of obtaining Burr's assist- 
ance in mounting to the chief magistrate's chair ? To one 
familiar with Jefferson's correspondence and methods, it 
seems most probable, that he hoped and expected Burr to 
reply that the " questions " would be solved by the elevation 
of the Vice-President to the Presidency. 

Now as to the second letter, dated December loth, 1800. 
In the preceding November, there was an election for Presi- 



122 NOTES ON 

dential electors. The Republican candidates were Jefferson 
and Burr. The Federalists voted for Adams and Pinckney. 
By the Constitution, as it then was, the person who re- 
ceived a majority of the whole number of electoral votes 
was the President, but, " if there be more than one who 
have such a majority, and have an equal number of votes, 
then the House of Representatives shall immediately " 
choose one of them for President. Jefferson had reason to 
believe that he and Burr had each received a majority and 
an equal number of votes, and that the election must devolve 
on the House. In such case, a coalition between the Fed- 
eralists, and the Republicans who favored Burr, would re- 
sult in his election, provided he acquiesced in the arrange- 
ment. 

How important, then, for Jefferson to ascertain the views 
and purposes of the man who might defeat or elect him, or 
at any rate, to conciliate that man ! More than three years 
had elapsed since a letter had been received from or written 
to Burr by him, though he was an indefatigable letter 
writer. Now, however, he favored his long-neglected 
friend with one of his caressing epistles. This letter is 
truly Jeffersoniau. It is confidential. It is sent by private 
hands, and not by mail, lest in " this prying season," as 
Jefferson called it, some one besides Burr should read it. 
Seemingly frank, it is really disingenuous. In it there is 
no hint of a possible election by the House, which Jefferson 
feared, nor does he directly state that he had been chosen 
President, and Burr Vice-President. But he makes a cal- 
culation from which it appears that such is the fact. As- 
suming it to be so, he congratulates Burr on his election, 
and expresses the belief that such a result is more gratify- 
ing to him than any appointment by the Executive. He 
then modestly alludes to the talents, the integrity, the repu- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 123 

tation of some one, without positively saying that Burr is 
talented, upright, and renowned, though the words used 
seem to imply all this. He flatteringly alludes to the loss 
" we sustain of your aid in our new administration," intend- 
ing to convey the impression that he proposed appointing 
Burr a member of his cabinet, in case of the latter's non- 
election to the Vice-Presidency, but carefully abstaining 
from an explicit declaration of such purpose. (Was the 
assumed election of Burr really a surprise to Mr. Jefferson ?) 
The letter concludes with " affectionate salutations." When 
the character of this letter, its date, the long interval be- 
tween that date and the date of the preceding letter, the 
political situation, and the peculiar relations of Burr and 
Jefferson, resulting from the failure of the electors to elect 
a President, are considered, the motives that prompted Jef- 
ferson to write the letter of December 15th, are manifest. 
The third letter, penned not long after, evidences greater 
solicitude than either of the others for the friendship of a 
certain person who was always in the market, for it was 
then certain that the election had devolved upon the House, 
and it had been bruited about that Burr was willing to ac- 
cept an election by the united votes of Republican and 
Federal members. 

After repeated ballotings, Jefferson was chosen by the 
House of Representatives on February 17th, 1801. Ele- 
vated now to the summit of his ambition, and sustained by 
an ever-increasing popularity, he no longer had need of 
Burr's assistance, and addressed to him no more adulatory 
letters. 

On the evening of January 26th, 1804, Burr called upon 
Jefferson. In the course of their conversation, Burr men- 
tioned the growing distrust of himself by the Republican 
party, and adverted to the attacks upon him by the press. 



124 .NOTES ON 

He then said that as his term of office as Vice-President 
would soon expire, he would be somewhat compensated for 
this distrust and these attacks, if he could return to his home 
with some evidence of the President's undiminished confi- 
dence in him. In this connection, he recalled to Jefferson's 
recollection his letter of December 15th, 1800, in which he 
mentioned his purpose of appointing Burr to his cabinet. 
The President agreed with Burr in condemning the journal- 
istic assaults upon him, but added that these attacks no more 
influenced his opinion of Burr than the passing wind. Their 
conversation then turned upon other topics. Xothing oc- 
curred during the interview, to indicate any change in the 
cordial relations heretofore existing between the President 
and Vice-President. At parting, the subject of the appoint- 
ment was left to the consideration of the President. On 
that very evening Jefferson wrote down in his Ana the dis- 
paraging sentences respecting Burr, above quoted. 

This statement might well be doubted, were its truth not 
established by the Ana themselves. In March, 1806, Burr 
several times visited Jefferson. The Ana mention three of 
these visits. During one of them, Burr again asked Jeffer- 
son for an appointment. The President, in reply, expressed 
his admiration for Burr's talents and his belief that Burr, if 
called to any place in the government, would use his fine 
abilities for the public welfare, but declined to appoint him 
upon the ground that he had lost the confidence of the 
people, and that the President had determined to place in 
office no man who did not possess that confidence. Burr 
subsequently dined with the President, and again called to 
take leave of him, before quitting Washington. 

Whether the motives above ascribed to Jefferson for writ- 
ing the three letters to Burr were, or were not the motives that 
really prompted him to write them, these letters, his Ana, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1^0 

and his letter to Mr. Giles, above mentioned, taken together, 
clearly reveal his insincerity. It is not a single instance of 
duplicity which is brought to light by these writings, but 
insincerity extending through more than a decade of years, 
and apparently systematized. It would seem, too, that during 
much of this time, he was practicing a double deception ; he 
was deceiving Burr and deceiving the public, since Burr's, 
dining at the White House and his several calls on the 
President, all undoubtedly noised abroad, were well calcu- 
lated to diffuse the idea of their continued intimacy. 

The insincerity was attended with aggravating circum- 
stances. Without solicitation, Jefferson offered his friendship 
to Burr, and in three successive letters, he expressed his ad- 
miration and respect for him ; he manifested much solicitude 
to retain his friendship. During the interview of 1804, he 
talked and acted as if his feelings towards Burr were un- 
changed, yet almost immediately after his guest haddeparted, 
he wrote in his private note-book that he had entertained a 
distrust of that guest, and a belief in his venality, long be- 
fore the three letters to him were written. After having 
penned this secret indictment of the man whose friendship 
he had courted, and while it still remained uncancelled, 
Jefferson several times received Burr at the Presidential 
mansion, complimented him on his talents, expressed his 
confidence that those talents, if opportunity were offered, 
would be employed for the good of the country, entertained 
him at dinner, and again permitted his guest to depart, 
without an intimation that he had lost the President's 
friendship, or that there had been any diminution of his 
regard. May not the man who can act thus, be reckoned 
an adept in dissimulation ? 

Asssociated with Jefferson's insincerity in dealing with 
Burr, is his flattery of the latter, a flattery so fulsome that 



126 NOTES ON 

it may almost be styled sycophantic. He thrusts himself 
on the attention of Burr. He writes one letter in order 
that he may have an opportunity of recalling himself to the 
memory of Burr, and of evidencing his esteem for him. In 
another, he eulogizes Burr's abilities, integrity, disposition, 
popularity, and assures him that his election to the Vice- 
Presidency, leaves a chasm in his (Jefferson's) new adminis- 
tration, "which cannot be adequately filled." Although 
Burr made no reply to either of these letters (none is found 
in the published correspondence of either Burr or Jefferson), 
when the latter heard of his alleged letter to Breckenridge, 
he did not wait for any complaint on the part of Burr, but 
hastened to write the obsequious letter of February, 1801, 
which is as follows : 

" Dear Sir : 

"It was to be expected that the enemy would endeavor 
to sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our 
friends. Every consideration assures me that you will be 
on your guard against this, as I assure you, I am strongly. 
I hear of one stratagem so imposing, and so base, that it is 
proper I should notice it to you. Mr. Mum ford, who is 
here, says he saw in New York before he left it, an origi- 
nal letter of mine to Judge Breckenridge, in which are sen- 
timents highly injurious to you. He knows my hand- 
writing, and did not doubt that to be genuine. I enclose 
you a copy taken from the press copy, of the only letter I 

ever wrote to Judge B in my life ; the press copy 

itself has been shown to several of our mutual friends here. 
Of consequence, the letter seen by Mr. Mumford must have 
been a forgery, and, if it contains a sentiment unfriendly or 
disrespectful to you, I affirm it solemnly to be a forgery, as 
also, if it varies from the copy enclosed. With the common 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 127 

trash of slander, I should not think of troubling you, but 
the forgery of one's handwriting is too imposing to be ne- 
glected, A mutual knowledge of each other, furnishes us 
with the best test of the contrivances which will be prac- 
ticed by the enemies of both. Accept assurances of my 
high respect and esteem." 

No man with true nobility of soul will play the syco- 
phant to the most excellent of his fellow creatures, but 
Jefferson flatters and fawns upon one, whom he pronounces 
venal and unworthy of confidence. We have said that the 
dissimulation of Jefferson towards Burr was apparently 
systematized. We mention three of the facts which sug- 
gested this reflection. 1. Jefferson knew Burr, nearly thir- 
teen years, before he wrote in the Ana his opinion of him. 
2. Burr, in referring to the letter of December 15th, did not 
distinctly remember its date. Jefferson took the pains to 
find the letter, to write down its precise date in his account 
of the interview, and to state in that account, that he in- 
tended to appoint Burr to a place in the cabinet, in conse- 
quence of his party services and political success in New 
York, reasons, it will be perceived, somewhat different from 
those mentioned in the letter. 3. We find in the Ana no 
entry between the memorandum respecting Burr's first in- 
terview, dated January 26th, 1804, and the memorandum 
regarding the second, dated April 15th, 1806, which Jeffer- 
son says was made about a month after the interview, and 
which, be it noted, is the last entry in the Ann. 

Whatever may have been Jefferson's opinion of Burr 
during the earlier years of their acquaintance, it is certain 
that he later conceived a strong hatred of him. This hatred,^ 
concealed for a time, manifested itself conspicuously, just 
before and during Burr's trial for treason in 1807. In 



128 NOTES <>N 

that trial, Jefferson exerted his personal and official influ- 
ence to secure a conviction. He was not content to trust 
the prosecution to Mr. Hay, the U. S. District Attorney, 
assisted by the splendid talents of William Wirt, but prac- 
tically assumed its control, and wrote letter after letter 
containing directions as to its management. So eager was 
he, that he di regarded in this matter official dignity and 
propriety ; he hunted up evidence, he named certain wit- 
nesses whom he wished to be summoned — he himself con- 
versed with a number of persons in order to ascertain what 
would be their testimony, if placed upon the stand ; he 
sought to procure convicting evidence by urging upon one 
of the accused a pardon, unsought, and once refused ; he 
descended to petty details, such as directing Mr. Hay, in 
what manner to examine a particular witness; he actually 
requested that officer to send him subpoenas for ivitnesses. 

Having stooped from the high office of President to per- 
form the functions of an assistant public prosecutor, he 
seems to have descended still lower. Shortly after Burr's 
trial, Dr. Erick Bollman, the friend of Lafayette, published 
an account of what passed between himself and Jefferson in 
reference to the case. In that account, the Doctor sets forth 
that he voluntarily called upon the President, and in the 
presence of Mr. Madison, made to him a statement of what 
he knew respecting the transactions for which Burr was 
soon to be tried ; that Jefferson soon after, wrote him a note 
in which the President asked him to commit to writing what 
he had stated at their recent interview, and gave his word of 
honor that the statement should never be used against the 
Doctor, or permitted to pass out of Jefferson's hands; that 
in a letter, delivered to the President, he made the state- 
ment desired ; that Mr. Hay admitted in open court that he 
had that letter, but refused to deliver it to the foreman of 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 129 

the grand jury, who had asked for it ; that it further ap- 
peared in court, that General Wilkinson had seen in Hay's 
possession a letter to the President signed by Bollman, and 
finally, that the doctor had still in his possession Jefferson's 
note containing his request and solemn promise above- 
mentioned, a copy of which note appears in the published 
account. 

Three of the doctor's allegations, to wit : that he wrote a 
statement respecting Burr's case, that it was delivered to 
Jefferson, and was subsequently in the possession of Mr. 
Hay, are proven by a letter from Jefferson to Hay, trans- 
mitting a written statement of Dr. Bollman touching the 
case, (there could hardly have been two such statements), 
and authorizing the District .Attorney to use it against the 
Doctor, should he greatly prevaricate in his examination 
before the grand jury. It is possible that Jefferson never 
wrote the note which Bollman avers he did write, and a 
copy of which is embodied in the doctor's publication, but 
it is almost incredible that the Doctor made statements the 
falsity of which could so easily be shown. If the note was 
penned or dictated by Jefferson, he undoubtedly violated 
one of the promises it contained, and authorized the viola- 
tion of the other in a certain contingency. 

Jefferson's animosity to Burr extended itself to his coun- 
sel, and to the tribunal before which he was tried. He 
criticised the rulings of the judges, pronounced some of them 
contrary to law, and endeavored to inspire Mr. Hay with 
distrust of the court of which he was an officer. He in- 
formed Mr. Giles that the testimony " will satisfy the world 
if not the judge (Marshall) of Burr's guilt," and wickedly 
charged that great jurist and pure man with trying to shield 
Burr from merited punishment. He styled Burr's leading 
counsel, Luther Martin, " an unprincipled and impudent 



130 NOTES ON 

Federal bull-dog," and asserted that all Burr's most clam- 
orous defenders were his accomplices. He asked Mr. 
Hay whether "we shall move to commit Luther Martin as 
particeps criminis with Burr." The letter containing this 
suggestion is a painful revelation of Jefferson's malignity 
towards Bnrr, and all who ventured to defend him. He 
proposed to deprive a man on trial for his life, of the assist- 
ance of that counsel most familiar with his case and best 
qualified to defend him, as well as of the active sympathy 
of a devoted friend, when friends were few ; to pain Mr. 
Martin by preventing him from defending his friend in the 
direst emergency, to humiliate him by arresting him while 
engaged in the trial, to fix a stigma upon a renowned and 
honorable advocate, by thrusting him into jail upon the 
charge of participating in a great crime. Jefferson cannot 
be excused for suggesting this monstrous proceeding — a 
proceeding without precedent in the history of criminal 
prosecutions — upon the ground that he had discovered evi- 
dence sufficient to convict Martin. He hints at no such 
evidence. All he hopes to do is to fix upon Martin "a 
suspicion of treason." He adds: "at any rate his testi- 
mony (that of a newly-found witness) will put down this 
Federal bull-dog." His professed reasons for proposing 
the committal of Martin were, that he had been informed 
that it was generally believed in Baltimore that Burr was 
planning an unlawful enterprise of some sort, that Luther 
Martin knew all about this enterprise, and that he (Jeffer- 
son) had received a letter stating that one Graybell could 
possibly prove this knowledge. It will be perceived, that 
he does not claim to have information that Mr. Martin had 
aided or abetted the " conspiracy " for which Burr was on 
trial, or had any knowledge of it, or that he had entered into 
any illegal combination whatever, and that the suggestion of 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 131 

a committal was made before it had been ascertained by actual 
examination or otherwise, that Graybell could testify to the 
commission of any improper act by Martin. For no better 
reasons than these Jefferson was willing, apparently, to in- 
flict the cruel wrongs above mentioned upon two gentlemen, 
his peers, one of whom had not only been a Senator and 
Vice-President of the United States, but had received the 
same number of electoral votes for the Presidency as Jeffer- 
son himself; the other of whom had sat in the Convention 
which framed the Federal Constitution, and, at the time of 
the contemplated outrage, was one of the most eminent 
lawyers of the country. 

Burr's acquittal on the charge of treason did not appease, 
but apparently augmented Jefferson's wrath. He indirectly 
charged somebody (name suppressed in letter) with endeav- 
oring to clear Burr, and " keep the evidence from the world." 
In order to prevent the latter calamnity, he absurdly and 
tyranically directs Mr. Hay not to pay the witnesses, or 
permit them to depart, until their testimony delivered at 
the trial is reduced to writing. He further directs Mr. 
Hay to obtain a copy of the record of the trial and of the 
judge's opinion, without saying for what, and to send them, 
with the evidence, all duly certified, to him at Washington. 
He orders the trial of Burr for misdemeanor. Forgetting 
or disregarding the fifth Amendment to the Constitution, 
he desires Mr. Hay to consider whether Burr cannot be 
again tried in Ohio for treason, after the misdemeanor trial 
is ended either by conviction or acquittal. Burr's case had 
twice been before a grand jury in Kentucky, and had each 
time been dismissed ; he had been tried for treason at Rich- 
mond, and acquitted. Jefferson had already directed his 
prosecution for misdemeanor, and now hopes that he may 
be imprisoned for this offence, so that " we " may have time 



132 NOTES ON 

to decide whether his former friend shall again be placed in 
jeopardy of his life, and exposed to an infamous death. 
Well might General Jackson denounce Jefferson as a "per- 
secutor" of Burr, and Luther Martin declare that Jefferson 
hunted Burr, " with a bloodhound's keen and savage thirst 
for blood." 

Jefferson's indignation at Burr's acquittal is further shown 
by his indirect but bitter assaults upon Judge Marshall. 
Writing to Mr. Hay, he says: "This criminal is preserved 
to become the rallying point of all the disaffected and worth- 
less of the United States." The following from one of his 
letters to General Wilkinson, one would suppose to be the 
production of a bedlamite, rather than of the President of 
the United States : " The scenes which have been acted at 
Richmond are such as have never before been exhibited in 
any country, where all regard to public character has not 
yet been thrown off. They are equivalent to a proclama- 
tion of impunity to every traitorous combination which 
may be formed to destroy the Union." With that vague- 
ness of expression that he could so well employ, he suggests 
an amendment to the Constitution "which keeping judges 
independent of the Executive, will not leave them so of the 
nation." In this, as in other cases, he vents his indignation 
by covert attacks in letters to friends. His parting shot at 
the Judge was sending to Congress a copy of the proceedings, 
the evidence and the Judge's charge at the trial of Burr. 

Although Jefferson strove to obtain a conviction of Burr 
for the crime of treason, it is doubtful whether he really 
believed him guilty. In a letter to Mr. Giles he sets forth 
the transactions of Burr, upon which he bases the charge of 
treason. These are: 1. "The enlistment of men in a regu- 
lar way. 2. The regular mounting of guard round Blenner- 
hasset's Island, when they discovered Governor Tiffin's men 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 133 

to be on them. 3. The rendezvous of Burr with his men 
at the mouth of the Cumberland. 4. His letter to the acting 
Governor of Mississippi holding up the prospect of civil 
war. 5. His capitulation regularly signed with the aids of 
the Governor, as between two independent hostile com- 
manders." 

It is hard to understand how a lawyer or even an intelli- 
gent and unprejudiced layman, who had read the Constitu- 
tion, could decide that those transactions amounted to 
treason. Further, in a letter to Mr. Bowdoin, then our 
Minister at Madrid, Jefferson says: "Although at first he 
(Burr) proposed a separation of the Western country, and on 
that ground received encouragement from Yrujo, according 
to the usual spirit of his Government toward us, yet he 
very early saw that the fidelity of the Western country was 
not to be shaken, and turned himself wholly towards Mexico" 
Mr. Schmucker, in his impartial biography of Jefferson, 
expresses the opinion that Jefferson's non-belief in Burr's 
guilt is evident from this letter. 

Notwithstanding these letters, and other facts which may 
be advanced in support of the theory deduced from them, 
it is impossible to believe that Jefferson, insincere and un- 
scruplous as he may have been, was base enough to procure 
the execution of a man of whose innocence he was persuaded. 
It is more probable that he endeavored to have Burr con- 
victed, regardless of his guilt or innocence, with the inten- 
tion of pardoning him. By his conviction for treason and 
his pardon, Jefferson could humiliate and ruin one who, he 
supposed, had intrigued to supplant him in his first presi- 
dential contest, and at the same time, blazon his own mag- 
nanimity to the world, that is the people, whose favor he 
courted with all the obsequiousness of a petty shop-keeper. 



134 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER XVII. 

JEFFERSON'S SLANDERS OF HAMILTON. 

Some one has said of Jefferson : " He did not hesitate to 
attribute to them (his political opponents) purposes which 
no honest mind could form, and no rational mind entertain." 
This, if true, is not very flattering to the judgment of him 
whom it concerns, and still less so to his heart. A brief 
examination of some of the purposes and practices which 
Jefferson attributed to Hamilton, will enable us to form an 
estimate of the accuracy of the foregoing statement respect- 
ing him. 

1. He alleged that Hamilton favored his friends and 
adherents, by communicating to them at opportune times 
the financial secrets of the Treasury. The charge is made 
in two letters to Washington, one dated May 23d, 1792, 
the other, September 9th, 1792. In this, as in other similar 
cases, he offered no proofs of the truth of his injurious al- 
legations against a brother cabinet officer. The fact that 
he brought forward no evidence in support of the charge, 
evinces his inability to do so, for he certainly lacked not the 
inclination. But while there is nothing to establish its 
truth, there are strong reasons for believing it untrue. 
While Hamilton was Washington's private secretary, he 
contracted an intimacy with Henry Lee, then at the head- 
quarters of the army. This intimacy ripened into friend- 
ship. Towards the close of 1789, while Hamilton was 
preparing his report on the public credit, Colonel Lee 
addressed him a letter, containing certain inquiries respect- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 135 

ing the fiscal measures which he proposed recommending to 
Congress. The information, which the colonel wished thus 
to elicit, he expected to use for his private pecuniary benefit. 
There was probably no one, whom the Secretary would have 
more willingly obliged than his quondam associate in arms. 
But mark his reply, found in Vol. V., p. 446, of his works : 
"My dear Sir; I received your letter of the 16th inst. I 
am sure you are sincere when you say that you would not sub- 
ject me to an impropriety, nor do I know that there would be 
any in answering your queries. But you remember the saying 
about Cesar's wife. I think the spirit of it applicable to 
every one, concerned in the administration of the finances of 
the country; with respect to the conduct of such men, sus- 
picion is ever eagle-eyed, and the most innocent things may 
be misrepresented. Be assured of the affectionate friendship 
of yours," etc. This letter does not indeed prove that 
Hamilton never revealed treasury secrets to any one, but it 
raises the strongest presumption of his innocence. If he 
would not reveal them to one of his most intimate friends, 
in whose discretion he could certainly confide, and when by 
so doing he could strengthen his own Congressional influ- 
ence, it may be safely inferred, in the absence of evidence 
to the contrary, that he Aid not impart those secrets to others. 
As Jefferson, though willing enough, adduced no testimony 
in support of his accusation, the conclusion is inevitable that 
his charge against the Secretary is false, and that the accuser 
had no reason to believe it true. 

2. He charged that Hamilton wished the public debt 
"never to be paid, but always to be a thing wherewith to 
corrupt and manage the legislature." Letter of Jefferson 
to Washington above mentioned, dated September 9th, 
1792, Sparks Writings of Wasltington, Vol. 10, Appendix. 
The evidence that this allegation is entirely unfounded, 



136 NOTES ON 

and that Jefferson knew it to be so when he penned it, is as 
follows: On page 41, of Hamilton's Report on Public 
Credit, dated January 9th, 1790, is the following: "Per- 
suaded as the Secretary is, that the proper funding of the 
present debt w T ill render it a public blessing, yet he is so far 
from acceding to the position in the latitude in which it 
is sometimes laid down, that public debts are public bless- 
ings, a position inviting to prodigality, and liable to dan- 
gerous abuse, that he ardently wishes to see it incorporated 
as a fundamental maxim in the system of public credit of the 
United States, that the creation of debt should always be ac- 
companied with the means of its extinguishment. This he 
regards as the true secret of rendering public credit immor- 
tal." He then proposes that certain revenues "shall be 
appropriated to continue so vested until the whole debt shall 
be discharged." In Hamilton's Report on Estimates, he 
urges that a surplus of one million then in the treasury, 
should be applied to the discharge of the public debt. 
In his Report on Manufactures, bearing date December 
5th, 1791, he says : " And as the vicissitudes of nations 
beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, 
there ought to be, in every government, a perpetual, 
anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that which at any 
time exists as fast as practicable consistently with integrity, 
and good faith." All these Reports were made and pub- 
lished long anterior to the date of the letter containing the 
charge; the first of them, two years and eight months 
before that date. This one was commented upon throughout 
the country, and as Jefferson reached home, on his return 
from France about the close of 1789, it may be safely as- 
sumed that prior to September, 1792, he had read the Report 
on Public Credit, and knew that one of the fundamental 
principles of Hamilton's financial system was that the ex- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 137 

tinguishment of a public debt should be provided for at the 
time of its contraction. If this report escaped his notice, 
it can scarcely be doubted that he was familiar with the 
Report of December, 1791, made when he was in the cabi- 
net with Hamilton, and was impelled by both public and 
personal motives, to scan everything penned by the latter. 
Should this report, also, by any possibility, have been over- 
looked, Jefferson, as a member of the Cabinet, would neces- 
sarily learn the general principles upon which the Treasury 
Department was conducted. The proposition that Hamil- 
ton favored the payment of the public indebtedness is 
proven by official documents ; the proposition that Jefferson 
wilfully misrepresented him on this point, is sustained by 
evidence, that will force conviction upon every one who ex- 
amines it. 

3. In immediate connection with the charge that has 
just been considered, is one of a much more serious nature, 
namely, that Hamilton wished the Public Debt " always to 
be a thing wherewith to corrupt and manage the legislature." 
He elsewhere declares that Hamilton's financial system was 
" A machine for the corruption of the Legislature." He 
made no attempt to show that any one had been bribed or 
corrupted ; he set forth no specifications. On February 
28th, 1793, Mr. Giles, a friend of Mr. Jefferson, introduced 
into the House of Representatives nine resolutions touching 
Hamilton's alleged mismanagement of the Treasury Depart- 
ment. Two of them were abandoned — one of them was 
never voted on, and the remaining six were rejected by an 
average vote of about four to one. The inquiry .set on foot 
by the resolutions, revealed Hamilton's integrity, and nice 
sense of honor. His enemies were greatly chagrined, and 
asserted that the resolutions had failed through the influ- 
ence of members, interested in sustaining the Secretary. 

10 



138 NOTES ON 

The press continued its assaults upon him. At the next session 
of Congress, Hamilton demanded an investigation of the 
affairs of the Treasury. Resolutions in the nature of charges 
were preferred against him in both Houses. In the Senate, 
they were referred to a committee, and no further action is 
recorded. Two-thirds of the committee to which they were 
referred in the House, were Republicans. After a laborious 
investigation extending through a period of two months, 
this committee, on May 22d, 1794, made a report entirely 
exculpating Hamilton, which was adopted without a dis- 
senting voice. This report, not only established the spot- 
Jess purity of the Secretary, but bore testimony to his scru- 
pulous obedience to the laws, as well as to his vigilance in 
guarding the public interests. Thus was Hamilton twice 
vindicated. 

When it is considered that Jefferson made this charge 
against Hamilton while the latter was Secretary of the 
Treasury, and the former was Secretary of State ; that the 
charge was made to the President, who was an intimate 
friend of Hamilton ; that the reputation of Hamilton was 
unsullied, that the charges assailed the integrity of the legis- 
lature, as well as that of the Secretary ; that the accusation 
asserted not one act only, but a system of corruption ; that 
the accuser offered not a scintilla of proof in support of his 
terrible allegation, and that it was utterly false, it is scarcely 
too much to say, that a more shameful assault upon char- 
acter is not to be found in the chronicles of slander. 

4. In the letter, which contains the two preceding calum- 
nies, Jefferson declared that Hamilton's career was " A tissue 
of machinations against the liberty of a country that had 
received and fed him." It is hardly necessary to say, that 
there was no attempt to sustain this sweeping accusation by 
any testimony, direct or circumstantial. The person who 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 139 

made it, seems rarely to have thought it necessary to estab- 
lish the truth of any defamatory statement respecting a 
political opponent, which he choose to put forth. He had 
repeatedly hinted, and indirectly preferred this charge, but 
had not before stated it clearly, or in such offensive language. 
Enough has been said in the Note on Jefferson's Apprehen- 
sions of a Monarchy, to show that it is unfounded. Even 
if nothing in disproof, could be brought forward, it must 
be regarded as false, for he, who speaks or writes what in- 
juriously affects the character, or the interests of another, 
and fails to prove the truth of his declaration, is held, both 
in law and in reason, to have uttered what is untrue. 

In addition to what has been stated in refutation of this ac- 
cusation, two facts may be adduced. 1 . In the Constitutional 
Convention Hamilton moved that the President be ineli- 
gible after two successive terms. See Hamilton's History 
of the Republic, vol. iv, chap. 72 and note. 2. In the Ana, 
under date of August 13th, 1791, Jefferson records that 
Hamilton, in a private conversation with him, condemned par- 
ticularly Adam's " Davila," and, among other things, said : 
" Since we have undertaken the experiment, (of the present 
government) I am for giving it a fair course, whatever my 
expectations may be. At present, success seems more prob- 
able than it had done heretofore That mind must 

be really depraved, which would not prefer the equality of 
political rights, which is the foundation of pure Republican- 
ism, if it can be obtained consistently with order. There- 
fore, whoever by his writings disturbs the present order of 
things is really blamable, however pure his intentions may 
be." Here we have from Jefferson's own pen, strong if 
not sufficient testimony to disprove his allegation, for it is 
difficult, almost impossible, to believe that a man who spoke 
the words taken from the Ana, and whose sincerity is ad- 



140 notes o:n 

mitted by Jefferson himself, could be engaged in continual 
intrigues against the liberties of his country. 

5. One more charge against Hamilton will be noticed. 
It is, that he not only favored a monarchy, but that he 
wished " A monarchy bottomed on corruption." This is 
assuredly a very remarkable accusation, but it is hardly 
more so than the evidence which Jefferson submits for the 
purpose of sustaining it. This evidence, found in the 
prefix to the Ana, is as follows : " But Hamilton was not 
only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on corrup- 
tion. In proof of this, I will relate an anecdote, for the 
truth of which I attest the God who made me. Before the 
President set out on his Southern tour in April, 1791, he 
addressed a letter from Mount Vernon to the Secretaries of 
State, Treasury, and War, desiring that if any serious and 
important cases should arise during his absence, they would 
consult, and act on them. And he requested that the Vice 
President should also be consulted. This was the only 
occasion, in which that officer was ever requested to take 
part in a Cabinet question. 

"Some occasion for consultation having arisen, I invited 
those gentlemen to dine with me, in order to, confer on the 
subject. After the cloth was removed, and our question 
argued and dismissed, conversation began on other matters, 
and by some circumstance was led to the British Constitu- 
tion, on which Mr. Adams observed, 'Purge that Constitu. 
tion of its corruption, and give to its popular branch 
equality of representation, and it would be the most perfect 
Constitution ever devised by the wit of man.' Hamilton 
paused, and said, ' Purge it of its corruption, and give to 
its popular branch equality of representation, and it would 
become an impracticable government; as it stands at present, 
with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect govern- 



THOMAS JEFFEESOX. 141 

ment that ever existed/ And this was assuredly the exact line, 
which separated the political creeds of these two gentlemen. 
The one was for two hereditary branches, and an honest, 
elective one ; the other for an hereditary king, with a House 
of Lords and Commons, corrupted to his will, and standing 
between him and the people. Hamilton was, indeed, a 
singular character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, 
honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable 
in society, and duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so 
bewitched and perverted by the British example, as to be 
under thorough conviction that corruption was essential to 
the government of a nation." 

Let this singular method of proving a statement be con- 
sidered, for a moment. One gentleman imputes to another 
a certain theory as to government, but offers no proof in 
support of his imputation. He several times repeats it, and 
on each occasion, without evidence. Many years after, when 
the accused party had long been sleeping in his grave, the 
imputer, in order to sustain his charge, makes an entry in 
his diary. This entry contains what purports to be an ac- 
count of an incident, that happened twenty-seven years be- 
fore, to the accuracy of which the narrator makes the most 
solemn attestation ; and also contains some reflections sug- 
gested by the incident related. The diary is not to be 
published during the life of its author. From the entry, 
it appears that an honorable man, " of acute understand- 
ing," was " so bewitched and perverted " by his admiration 
of the British Constitution, as to become thoroughly con- 
vinced " that corruption is essential to the government of a 
nation;" that a statesman, disinterested and honest in pri- 
vate life, favored " a House of Lords and Commons cor- 
rupted to his will, and standing between him and the 
people;" that a gentleman of more than ordinary intelli- 



142 NOTES ox 

gence, was stupid enough to avow, before persons, of whose 
friendship he was not assured, his preference of dishonesty 
to honesty in the administration of government. Is this 
senility? Perhaps it is; if so, it is a senility which makes 
no strong appeal to our sympathy ; it is senility, engaged 
in a blundering attempt to transmit to posterity, a foolish 
calumny upon a pure and noble man, invented and propa- 
gated by its author, while in the full possession of mental 
vigor. The incident related by Jefferson, and its circum- 
stances, deserve and will reward some attention. 

Though this incident is remarkable in more than one 
respect, and apparently better worth remembering than 
many things set down in the Ana, there is no mention of 
it therein, and no record of it was made for more than a 
quarter of a century. When, in 1792, and at other times, 
Jefferson wrote to Washington and others that Hamilton 
favored a monarchy, and the latter attempted to repel the 
charge, this incident, the occurrence of which could have 
been proved by Adams, Knox, and Randolph, would prob- 
ably have silenced him. When Jefferson imputed to Ham- 
ilton the purpose of using the public debt, to corrupt the 
Legislature, he might have imparted to this grave imputa- 
tion upon the Secretary and upon Congress a certain plau- 
sibility, by citing the explicit declaration of the Secretary. 
When Adams denied that he desired a king, Lords, and 
Commons, and challenged Jefferson to mention some act or 
word that evidenced such a desire, reference could have 
been triumphantly made to the consultation dinner, which 
they had eaten together, a short time before. But the inci- 
dent was recalled in none of these cases — not even in the 
last, where the temptation to do so must have been strong, 
and the task was easy. Armed with this double confession 
of political faith, the champion of Republicanism could 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 143 

have overwhelmed the two leading Federalists of his time. 
But, for some reason, he used this effective weapon in none 
of his contests. 

Perhaps he did not avail himself of this " anecdote/' in 
his party struggles, because the facts stated occurred at 
his own table; this delicacy cannot, however, account for 
his long delay in recording them. But why did he finally 
reduce them to writing? We may suppose that some such 
considerations as these moved him : " I have charged Ham- 
ilton and Adams with the design, and the effort to establish 
a Monarchy in this country. Both have strenuously con- 
tradicted the charge. I have offered no proof of my alle- 
gations. I have preferred a more serious accusation against 
Hamilton, but Congress has pronounced him pure in his 
high office. I shall soon pass away. The idea, that pos- 
terity may deem me capable of making false accusations 
against two of my most worthy and prominent contempo- 
raries, is distressing to me. A circumstantial account of 
this consultation dinner will show to those who come after 
me, that my course towards these eminent men was not en- 
tirely without cause." 

The time, at which the incident is stated to have occurred, 
though not precisely given, was scarcely three months before 
the date of Jefferson's letter to Adams, in which mention 
is made of their difference as to the best form of govern- 
ment. Was this mention due to Jefferson's recollection of 
Adams' post-prandial declaration? The latter, in his reply, 
makes no attempt to explain or qualify that declaration, as 
he would almost certainly have done, had he remembered 
it. Three facts are here to be noted : 1. This reply, in the 
ordinary course of the mails, would reach Jefferson but 
a few days prior to August 13th, 1791, the date of the 
An" entry, which narrates Hamilton's condemnation of 



144 NOTES ON 

Adams' writings, particularly "Davila." 2. This entry 
is the first in the Ana. 3. No other entry is made until the 
ensuing December. From the whole language of the entry, 
most of which is quoted above, page 139, and especially 
from its conclusion, one might infer that there is some rela- 
tion existing between it, and the account of the after-dinner 
incident. Its conclusion is as follows: "This is the sub- 
stance of a declaration, made in much more lengthy terms, 
and which seemed to be more formal than usual for a pri- 
vate conversation between two, and as if intended to qualify 
some less guarded expression, which had been dropped on 
former occasions. The inference would be strengthened 
by the fact, that this second declaration of Hamilton re- 
specting governmental systems was made, as appears from 
a comparison of Jefferson's dates, only a few months after 
the first one was made. The account of the second seems to 
have been written in August, 1791 ; the narrative of the first, 
in February, 1818. Jefferson was, apparently, quite aware 
that posterity would deem it very extraordinary, that a man 
of Hamilton's character and understanding favored a 
" monarchy bottomed on corruption," but, at the same time, 
was most anxious to have it believed that such was the case, 
for he endeavors to account for the anomaly, and appeals 
to his Creator for the truth of his statements. That he was 
also unusually solicitous for the accuracy and reliability of 
his record of Hamilton's second declaration is clear, for he 
added at its close : " Thomas Jefferson has committed it to 
writing in the moment of A. Hamilton's leaving the room." 
The incident at the consultation dinner so carefully re- 
corded, and so solemnly attested by Jefferson, did not appar- 
ently impress Mr. Adams very strongly, as no mention of it 
is found in his writings, — indeed, he appears to have forgotten 
it in less than three months, although it is stated that it hap- 



THOMAS JEFFEESOX. 145 

pened at the only Cabinet consultation which he attended 
while Vice-President. Mr. J. C. Hamilton, in his History 
of the Republic, avers that the incident could not possibly 
have occurred at the time stated, because at that period, in 
consequence of Cabinet disputes regarding the Bank ques- 
tion, the only intercourse between Hamilton and Jefferson 
was that of an official character, which was conducted in 
writing, and in the third person, and ridicules the idea that 
Hamilton made the declaration attributed to him. The 
narrator himself admits that his account of the incident 
was penned twenty-seven years after its alleged occurrence, 
and when he was seventy-five years old. Is it the dream 
of a dotard, or something worse ? 



14() NOTES OX 



CHAPTERXYIII. 

JEFFERSON AND WASHINGTON. 

The depravity of human nature is strikingly illustrated 
by the fact that the great and good man, to whom under 
Providence, this prosperous land is most indebted for the 
manifold blessings of independence, was, while yet alive, 
defamed by some of his own fellow-citizens. This is 
scarcely surprising, for the master-poet has said " Virtue 
itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes." But it is both as- 
tonishing and painful to discover among his detractors, 
the distinguished person who has occupied in popular 
affection the place next to that held by him, who is " first 
in the hearts of his countrymen ; " it is astonishing to learn 
that Thomas Jefferson did not discourage, but possibly 
encouraged the calumniation of George Washington. 

Jefferson's slighting allusions to this illustrious man 
began while he was Washington's Secretary of State. 
August 11th, 1793, he wrote Mr. Madison, " The President 
always acquiesces in the majority," — that is, of the Cabinet. 
By thus writing, he not only endeavored to cast a slur on 
his chief, the President, but violated official propriety. In a 
letter to the same gentleman, dated December *28th, 1794, he 
wrote : " The denunciation (by Washington) of the Demo- 
cratic societies is one of the extraordinary acts of boldness, of 
which we have seen so many from the faction of mono- 
crats." He styles the denunciation " an attack on the free- 
dom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and 
publishing ;" says that the President has taken advantage 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 147 

of the misbehavior of certain persons "to slander the friends 
of popular rights," — that the President's proposition to re- 
strain the licentiousness of these societies is "an abstract at- 
tempt (whatever that is) on the natural and constitutional 
rights" of these friends, and "an inexcusable aggression." 
In the same letter, referring to the then recent suppression of 
the Whiskey Insurrection, he alleges that the President in 
effecting that suppression, was guilty of " arming one part 
of the society against another," — " of declaring a civil 
war, the moment before the meeting of that body, which 
has the sole right of declaring war," "of adding a million 
to the public debt ;" he ridicules that part of the President's 
speech in which the reasons for calling out the troops are 
stated, and alludes to what he is pleased to term " the fables in 
the speech." In regard to the same subject, he writes to Man n 
Page, May 27th, 1795, "An insurrection was announced, 
and proclaimed, and armed against, and marched against, but 
none could be found." He concludes that the enforcement 
of the excise law by calling out the militia, will " make 
it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting 
us all afloat, to choose what part of it we will adhere to." 

In one letter, he states that Washington was not sen- 
sible of the designs of his party ; in another, to Madison, 
he describes him as " enveloped in the rags of royalty." 
Referring to Washington's approval of the Jay treaty, 
Jefferson says, "I wish that his honesty and his political 
errors may not furnish a second occasion to exclaim, 
' Curse on his virtues, they have undone the country.' ' 
In his letter to Aaron Burr, of June 17th, 1797, we find him 
lamenting Washington's "ungrateful predilection in favor of 
Great Britain." December 25th, 1796, he writes to Madison : 
"The President is fortunate to get off (his term would 
expire the coming fourth of March) just as the bubble is 



148 NOTES OX 

about bursting; .... he will have his usual good fortune 
of reaping credit for the good acts of others, and leaving to 
them that of his errors." Another letter of his to Mr. 
Madison, dated January 8th, 1797, contains this scandalous 
paragraph ; " Monroe was appointed to office .... merely 
to get him out of the Senate, and with an intention to seize 
the first pretext for exercising the pleasure of recalling him." 
Writing to Mr. Tazewell, Jefferson thus expresses himself 
in regard to Washington, " I hope also that the recent 
insults of the English will at length awaken in our Execu- 
tive that sense of public honor and spirit which they have 
not lost sight of in their proceedings with other nations, 
and will establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under 
insult is not the way to escape war." 

The famous letter to Mazzei, dated April 24th, 1796, 
contains these passages: "The aspect of our politics has 
wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble 
love of liberty and republican government, which carried us 
triumphantly through the war, an Anglican, monarchical, 
and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object 
is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done 
the forms of the British government. The main body of our 
citizens, however, remain true to republican principles." 
" Against us are the Executive, the judiciary, two out of three 
branches of the Legislature, all the officers of the Govern- 
ment .... and holders in the banks, and public funds, 
a contrivance invented for purposes of corruption." " It 
would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates 
who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Sam- 
sons in the field, and Solomons in the council, but who 
have had their heads shorn by the harlot of England. We 
are likely to preserve the liberty we have gained only by 
unremitting labors and perils; our mass of weight and 



THOMAS JEFFEBSOX. 149 

wealth on the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that 
force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to 
awake, and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have 
been entangling us, during the first sleep which succeeded 
our labors." In this letter, Washington, who was the Exec- 
utive when it was written, is accused of being a member of 
an Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party (a truly 
wonderful party, it may be remarked), whose avowed pur- 
pose is to establish here a government like that of Great 
Britain ; a party, that has for years been " entangling the 
people for some ulterior purpose; that is so bent on the 
destruction of popular liberty, that it can only be preserved 
by " unremitting labors and perils :" he is charged with be- 
ing an apostate, and with having approved and helped to 
create " a contrivance, invented for purposes of corrup- 
tion." It is, moreover, intimated that he and his party 
meditated the employment of force against their political 
opponents, and that he is one of those whose head has been 
shorn by the harlot of England. It is true, none of these 
accusations are clearly formulated. Jefferson rarely made 
a direct charge, but they are none the less contained in the 
letter when it is read in the light of contemporaneous 
history. 

Jefferson not only himself traduced Washington, but 
•sanctioned, instigated, and probably procured the vitu- 
peration of him by others. The papers, that most violently 
assailed him and his administration, were the National 
Gazette, and the Commercial Advertiser, that afterwards 
became the Aurora. Washington wrote General Lee thai; 
the " publications in these two papers were outrages on 
common decency" Two extracts from articles which 
appeared in them, when Washington's second term expired, 
show the character of their attacks upon him. First. " The 



150 NOTES ON 

man who is the source of the misfortunes of our country is 
this clay reduced to a level with his fellow citizens, and is 
no longer possessed of the power to multiply evils on the 
United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this 
is the moment. Every heart ought to exult, that the name 
of Washington from this day ceases to give currency to 
political iniquity, and to legalize corruption. A new era 
is opening, .... for nefarious projects can no longer be 
supported by a name. When retrospect is taken of the 
Washington administration, it is a subject of astonishment 
that a single individual could have cankered the principles 
of Republicanism in an intelligent people, and should have 
carried his designs against the public liberty so far, as to 
put in jeopardy its very existence ; such, however, are the 
facts." Second. " If ever a nation was debauched by a man, 
the American nation has been debauched by Washington. If 
ever a nation was deceived by a man, the American nation 
has been deceived by Washington .... Let the history 
of the Federal Government instruct mankind, that the 
mask of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest 
designs against the liberty of the people." One is astounded 
at the audacity and malignity of these attacks. 

Freneau, the editor of the National Gazette, was translating 
clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, and was appointed 
by Jefferson, whose protege and dependant he was. Jefferson 
aided him in establishing his paper, recommended it to his 
friends, furnished it occasionally with public documents, 
and procured subscribers for it. It was universally recog- 
nized as the organ of the Secretary. During much of the 
time that Jefferson was a member of Washington's Cabinet, 
the Gazette kept up its abuse of the President, but the 
Secretary made no attempt to check it, and no apology to 
Washington for its denunciation of him. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 151 

The Aurora was under the control of B. F. Bache, who, 
educated in France, was fanatically favorable to the ideas 
of the French Revolution; Cobbett calls him, " That yelper 
in the Democratic kennel." He was a friend and admirer 
of Jefferson, whose claims to the presidency, he was one of 
the first to advocate. Jefferson urged Madison to obtain 
subscriptions for the Aurora, that at the time was languish- 
ing for lack of support. The Gazette and the Aurora ad- 
vocated Jefferson's political sentiments, and expressed his 
opinion of the leading men of the time. In their editorials, 
there not infrequently appeared the turns of thought, and, 
sometimes, the very language found in his writings. In a 
sketch of Freneau, found in the New American Cyclopceclia, 
it is said, that, according to Freneau's statement, the most 
severe attacks upon Washington's administration, which 
appeared in the National Gazette, " were written or dictated 
by Jefferson." 

In addition to what has been stated respecting his imme- 
diate relations to these two papers, it may be said that after 
his retirement from the cabinet, Monticello became the head- 
quarters of those opposed to Washington and his admin- 
istration, and that Jefferson exercised all the prerogatives 
of the acknowledged leader of his party. Among those 
prerogatives was, of course, a large if not a controlling in- 
fluence in the management of the whole party press. He 
must, therefore, be held mainly responsible for its virulent 
abuse of Washington. 

A notorious libeller of the General, was James T. Cal- 
lender, a Scotchman, who fled from Great Britain to avoid 
a prosecution. Having arrived in this country, he joined 
himself to the Republicans, and soon found congenial work 
in the publication of a scandalous attack upon Hamilton. 
While temporarily in charge of the Aurora, in the absence 
of Bache, he industriously slandered leading Federalists in 



152 NOTES ON 

its columns. He was subsequently invited by Mr, Mason, 
a Senator from Virginia, to his home near Alexandria. 
While sharing the Senator's hospitality, he was found drunk 
and dirty in the purlieus of a neighboring distillery. 
Arrested as a vagrant, and taken before two Justices of the 
Peace, he was committed to jail upon suspicion of having 
escaped from the Baltimore wheelbarrow gang. His host 
procured his release, by presenting his naturalization papers, 
and vouching for his good character. By the aid of Re- 
publican friends, he established the Examiner at Richmond. 
There, convicted of seditious libel for the publication of a 
pamphlet, entitled " The Prospect Before Us" containing 
slanders upon Washington and Adams, he was fined $250, 
and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. This fellow 
complained that the honors accorded to the memory of 
Washington were idolatrous, and too expensive. Like Judas, 
when the weeping Mary poured the precious ointment on 
the feet of the Saviour, he asked, " Why was not this money 
given to the poor?" 

Scarcely was Jefferson seated in the presidential chair, 
when he pardoned Cal lender, and by the exercise of a doubt- 
ful power, remitted his fine, which had been paid. He, 
moreover, five times sent him money ; three of these remit- 
tances were $50 each. 

Incensed at his failure to obtain the Postmastership at 
Richmond, Callender ascribed to Jefferson the publication 
of The Prospect Before Us. Jefferson felt this keenly, styled 
Callender a " lying renegade," and promised to show the 
falsity of his imputation, by publishing all the letters he 
had ever written to him ; but he never did so, alleging that 
the copies of them could not be found. Callender, how- 
ever, produced the letters themselves, from which it appeared 
that Jefferson, notwithstanding his disclaimers to Madison 
and others, contributed money to defray the expenses of 



THOMAS JEFFERSOX. 153 

publishing the scandalous pamphlet, furnished information 
for it, and actually saw and approved some of the proof- 
sheets. 

In an entry in the Ana, under date of August 2d, 
1793, JeiFerson states that General Knox, introduced into 
a Cabinet meeting a pasquinade on the President, in which 
Washington and others were depicted on a guillotine. The 
author of the Ana relates the occurrence, with perfect sang- 
froid, as if a brutal caricature of the President was no 
concern of his. He does not even express surprise ; he 
characterizes what one must suppose was Knox's outburst 
of indignation at the outrage, as " a foolish and incoherent 
sort of a speech." He records with apparent satisfaction, 
that " the President was much inflamed — got into one of 
those passions, when he cannot command himself; " that he 
denounced that "rascal Freneau," and used improper lan- 
guage. But the narrator did not set forth the President's 
strong and frequent provocations to wrath, nor had he a 
word of censure for the author of the ferocious lampoon ; 
the enemies of Washington were the friends of Jefferson. 
Jefferson's bearing towards the French minister, Mr. Genet, 
while the latter was insulting Washington and defying his 
authority, is noticed elsewhere. 

In July, 1796, Thomas Paine addressed to Washington a 
letter, containing these passages : " When we speak of mili- 
tary character, something more is understood than constancy, 
and something more ought to be understood, than the Fabian 

system of doing nothing The successful skirmishes, 

at the close of one campaign, make the brilliant exploits of 

Washington's seven campaigns No wonder we see so 

much pusillanimity in the President, when we saw so little 
enterprise in the General, .... Elected to the Presidency, 
the natural ingratitude of your constitution began to appear. 

11 



154 NOTES ON 

The lands obtained by the Revolution, were lavished upon 
partisans ; the interest of the disbanded soldier was sold to 
the speculator; injustice was acted under the pretence of 
faith, and the chief of the army became the partner of the 

fraud And as to you, sir, treacherous in private 

friendship, and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be 
puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impos- 
tor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or 
whether you ever had any/' 

Xo one with an American heart, can even now read these 
words without indignation. Surely Mr. Jefferson had no 
connection, direct or indirect, with this infamous letter; 
surely, when it appeared, he hastened to denounce the inso- 
lent foreigner, who dared thus foully to insult a man, who 
was not only President of Jefferson's country, but his own 
friend. The letter was written at Paris, under the roof of 
Mr. Monroe, through whose intercession Paine had been re- 
leased from a French prison. It is well known that Monroe 
was one of Jefferson's most intimate friends, more inti- 
mate with him, perhaps, than any one, except Mr. Madison. 
Jefferson subsequently wrote Paine a letter, of which this 
is the conclusion : " That you may long live to continue 
your useful labors, and to reap their reward in the thank- 
fulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept assurances 
of my high esteem, and affectionate attachment." After he 
became President, he gave Paine a passage from France to 
our shores in a national vessel, received him with honor at 
the executive mansion, and welcomed him to Monticello. 
It may be mentioned, that about the time Paine was set 
at liberty, Mr. Monroe declined to ask the discharge of 
Madame Lafayette from prison. 

In order that the above- narrated transactions of Mr. Jef- 
ferson and his friends may be fully appreciated, the follow- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 155 

ing facts should be considered. During the greater portion 
of the time over which the transactions extended, Washing- 
ton was Chief Magistrate of the nation. He had rendered 
most valuable services to his fellow-countrymen, in war and 
in peace. His character was irreproachable. He was the 
most popular man in the country. He never wronged or 
insulted Mr. Jefferson, or even treated him with discourtesy 
— nor was he accused of doing so. He appointed Jefferson 
Secretary of State, honored him with his confidence, was 
his friend, when Freneau discharged his first poisoned arrow 
at the President, and remained his friend throughout the 
whole period of defamation. Jefferson knew full well that 
Washington was vexed and pained by the press attacks. 
This appears from the Ana, in which it is stated that he 
was "sore and hot 7 ' on account of them, and that on one 
occasion, he vehemently declared he would not continue to 
endure them for the empire of the world ; it also appears 
from a letter of his to Jefferson, in which he complains with 
much feeling, that the denunciation poured upon him by the 
press, could be deserved only by "a Nero or a pickpocket." 
He was vituperated at a time when he was beset with 
difficulties, and burdened with responsibilities, resulting from 
the changes effected in our civil polity by the Constitution 
— difficulties and responsibilities so great, that Jefferson 
himself expressed the opinion that no one, except the leader 
of our Revolutionary army, could establish and maintain 
the new government against those opposed to it. (Letter to 
Mr. Hopkinson, March, 1789.) Above all, it should be 
remembered that Washington had labored more efficiently 
than any other person, to achieve that very liberty which 
his assailants persistently charged him with seeking to sub- 
vert. Jefferson did not venture openly or directly to asperse 
the man, whom a grateful people designated and recognized 



156 NOTES ON 

as " the father of his country." The attacks were made in 
private letters, and through the agency of others ; the most 
malignant calumniators were foreign adventurers. For 
years before the batteries of detraction were opened, and 
during the whole time their fire was continued, Jefferson 
professed friendship and admiration for Washington, some- 
times in terms indicative of veneration. Here are the proofs. 
On May 28th, 1781, Jefferson, then Governor of Vir- 
ginia, wrote to the General-in-Chief of the army, asking 
him to come in person and expel the British troops from 
the State. In this letter, the Governor thus appeals to the 
General: "Your appearance among them (Virginians) 
would restore full confidence of salvation, and render them 
equal to whatever is not impossible." He adds that the 
General's presence would give the writer " an additional 
motive [which I thought could not have been) for that grati- 
tude, esteem, and respect which I have long felt for your 
excellency." In March, 1789, he wrote Mr. F. Hopkinson 
that Washington's "executive talents are superior, I be- 
lieve, to those of any man in the world," and alluded to 
"his perfect integrity." On March 27th, 1791, he thus 
addresses Washington himself: "For your safety, no one 
on earth more sincerely prays than I, both for public and 
private regards." The letter containing his resignation of 
the Secretaryship of State, dated December 31st, 1793, 
closes as follows : " I carry into my retirement a lively 
sense of your goodness, and shall continue gratefully to 
remember it. With my serious prayers for your life, health, 
and tranquillity, I pray you to accept the homage of the 
great and constant respect and attachment with which I 
have the honor to be, etc." Compare these humbly affec- 
tionate words with the bitter and contemptuous language 
respecting the President, found in the letter to Madison, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 157 

written just one year afterwards, in regard to the Demo- 
cratic societies and the repression of the Whiskey Revolt. 

On June 10th, 1796, the Aurora published the questions 
concerning our relations with France, that were confi- 
dentially submitted to the Cabinet when Jefferson was 
Secretary of State, and of which, as Washington knew, the 
ex-Secretary had a copy. On June 19th, Jefferson, then at 
Monticello, addressed to Washington a letter, in which he 
disavowed with vehement asseverations of sincerity, any 
connection with the publication. In that letter, he takes 
occasion to express his undiminished regard for the Presi- 
dent, and continues : " I learn that this last (General H. 
Lee) has thought it worth while to try to sow tares between 
yon and me, by representing me as still engaged in turbu- 
lence and intrigue against the government. I never believed 
for a moment that this could make any impression on you, 
or that yonr knowledge of me would not outweigh the 
slander of an intriguer." It will be remembered that he 
expressed similar sentiments, and employed some of these 
very phrases in a letter to Aaron Burr, written in 1801, a 
few days before the balloting for President began in the 
House of Representatives. After very affectionate compli- 
ments to Mrs. Washington, he concludes in these terms : "I 
have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem and re- 
spect, dear sir, your most obedient and most humble servant." 
Two months before, he had written the Mazzei letter. 

We learn from Jefferson himself that his last meeting 
with Washington was at the inauguration of Mr. Adams > 
that his parting on that occasion " was warmly affectionate, 
and I never had reason to believe any change on his part, 
as there certainly was none on mine." {Letter to Mr. Van 
Buren, June 29th, 1824.) In May, 1797, the Mazzei letter 
appeared in this country. Jefferson privately admitted 



158 NOTES ON 

that the letter as published was substantially what he had 
written to Mazzei, except " in one place," but upon consul- 
tation with his friends, decided not to avow or disavow his 
authorship of it. 

Some twenty-seven years after, Timothy Pickering stated, 
in his Revieiv of the Correspondence between John Adams 
cutd William Cunningham, that Washington demanded in 
writing from Jefferson a disavowal of this letter, or an 
apology for it. It was for the purpose of denying this state- 
ment, and showing its improbability, that the letter to 
Van Buren was written. In that letter, Jefferson declares 
that no apology was made or demanded; that no corre- 
spondence in regard to the Mazzei letter was exchanged 
between himself and Washington; that the expression, 
" Samsons in the field," found therein, referred to the Cin- 
cinnati generally, and that Washington had no cause to be 
offended, and was not offended at the contents of the letter. 
But in writing to Madison, August 3d, 1797, he assigns as 
one of the chief reasons for not avowing the letter, the 
apprehension that such avowal would " bring on a personal 
difference between General Washington and myself. It 
would embroil me, too, with all those with whom his char- 
acter is still popular, that is, with nine-tenths of the people 
of the United States." The letters mentioned by Mr. Pick- 
ering were not found among Washington's papers, after his 
death. They, who allege the correspondence, say the letters 
were probably abstracted by some one, possibly by Tobias 
Lear, Wash i ngton 's pri vate secretary. Jefferson maintai ned 
a confidential intercourse with Lear, and soon after his acces- 
sion to the Presidency, gave him a diplomatic appointment. 

Early in the year 1798, John Nicholas, of Virginia, 
informed Washington by mail that there was in the Char- 
lottesville Post Office a letter addressed in his hand-writ- 



THOMAS JEFFEESOX. 159 

ing to John Langhorne. Mr. Nicholas further stated that 
no person of that name resided in that vicinity, or, to the 
best of his knowledge, in the County, and that he feared 
some one had laid a snare for the ex-President. Washing- 
ton answered that, a short time before, he had received a 
letter, dated Warren, Albemarle county, Va., and signed 
John Langhorne, in which the writer condoled with him in 
the aspersions to which he was subjected, and hoped he would 
not permit them to disturb his peace of mind, and that he 
had replied to it. He sent Mr. Nicholas a copy of the letter 
and of the reply. Mr. Nicholas learned that the Langhorne 
letter was taken from the post office by a political opponent of 
Washington, it would seem by a messenger from Monticello. 
After further investigations, Mr. Nicholas wrote another 
letter to Washington. This letter has not been published, 
but some idea of its contents may be formed from Wash- 
ington's answer, dated March 8th, 1798. In this he 
writes : " Nothing short of the evidence you have adduced, 
corroborative of intimations which I had received long 
before through another channel, could have shaken my 
belief in the sincerity of a friendship, which I conceived 
was possessed for me by the person (Jefferson) to whom 
you allude." His belief in a friendship, attested by 
the repeated and deferential declarations of a person so 
trusted, and bound to him by so many ties as was Mr. Jef- 
ferson, must, indeed, have been hard to shake. The fact 
that John Nicholas was a zealous and somewhat prominent 
member of the political party opposed to him, had probably 
much weight with Washington. It is proper to state that 
Jefferson, when he wrote Mr. Van Buren the-letter in which 
he endeavored to show that he retained Washington's con- 
fidence to the end, was ignorant of the correspondence 
between the latter and Mr. Nicholas. 



160 NOTES ON 



CHAPTER XIX. 

jefferson's opinion of riots and insur- 
rections. 

From Paris, on December 20th, 1787, he wrote to Mr. 
Madison "The late rebellion in Massachusetts (Shay's) has 
given more alarm than it should have done. Calculate that 
one rebellion in thirteen States, in the course of eleven 
years, is but one for each State, in a century and a half. 
No country should be so long without one." 

In a letter to Mr. Madison of December 28th, 1 794, he 
refers to the Whiskey Insurrection of Western Pennsylvania, 
Far from blaming the insurgents, he excuses them ; calls 
them "our friends;" styies the Excise law that caused the 
revolt, " an infernal one ; " condemns, in very strong terms, 
the violent means employed for its suppression ; censures the 
Government for its decisive action in the matter ; ridicules 
the troops it sent ; says the detestation of the law is universal, 
and has extended itself to the Government; and finally de- 
clares that " separation is now near and certain, and 
determined in the mind of every man." In a word, his 
indignation is stirred, not by the insurrection, but by its 
suppression. The insurgents attacked with a force of 500 
men the house of the inspector of the revenue, and a de- 
tachment of United States troops sent for its defence; 
burned the house, and forced the officer in command of the 
troops to march out and surrender ; shot at the U. S. Mar- 
shal while in the performance of his duty ; seized him and 
endeavored to intimidate him ; violated the United States 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 161 

mail ; banished from Pittsburgh citizens whom they sus- 
pected of allegiance to the government; declared their 
purpose to resist by violence every attempt to enforce the 
obnoxious law, and, to carry out this purpose, raised a force 
of seven thousand men ; rejected an amnesty proffered by 
the President, and set on foot measures for the dissolution 
of the Union, in case other methods of nullifying the law 
should prove abortive. The conspiracy extended over 
Western Pennsylvania, Western Maryland, and parts of 
Virginia. Some of its agencies were established in the 
very suburbs of Philadelphia. One of the leaders said that 
if much pressed, they might march on the seat of the 
National Government. So great was the prevalent sense 
of danger in the disturbed districts, that even Quakers 
volunteered to fight against the insurgents. Such was the 
rebellion that Jefferson palliated, styling it merely " riotous 
transactions," and excusing it, on the ground that the Excise 
law was objectionable. His own State shamed him by 
a ready response to the President's call for volunteers, 
and her Governor, General Lee, accepted the position of 
commander-in-chief of the troops called out for the sup- 
pression of the insurrection. 

Jefferson wrote from Paris to Edward Carrington, Janu- 
ary 16th, 1787, " To punish these errors (tumults in the 
Eastern States) too severely would be to suppress the only 
safeguard of the public liberty" On January 30th, 1787, 
he writes to Mr. Carrington, "A little rebellion now and then 
is as necessary in the political world, as storms in the phy- 
sical ;" " Governors should be so mild in their punishment 
of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a 
medicine, necessary for the sound health of the government." 

Writing to Colonel Smith, he exclaims: " God forbid we 
should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion! (as 



162 NOTES ON 

Shay's) .... What country can preserve its liberties, if 
its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people 
preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. 
The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and 

pacify them The tree of liberty must be refreshed 

from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It 
is its natural manure." 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 163 



CHAPTER XX. 

SOME EVIDENCE OF HIS INSINCERITY. 

A close observer of men has remarked, " Beware of him, 
who places his hand over his heart, when he makes a state- 
ment or a promise." The same caution should be exercised 
in regard to him who habitually employs asseveration in 
writing or speaking. Jefferson frequently did this. He 
protested " In the name of Heaven," that he made no 
effort to control the sentiments or the conduct of the 
National Gazette. In the Virginia Convention of 1775, he 
declared " By the God that made me, I will cease to exist, 
before I yield to such a connection with England, and on 
such terms as the British Parliament propose." When he 
was about to relate an incident derogatory to Hamilton, in 
the introduction to his Ana, he prefaced the relation by 
the words : " For the truth of which (this) I attest the God 
who made me." When he expressed, in a letter to Adams, 
the pleasure which the latter's election to the Presidency 
afforded him, he appealed to his neighbors for confirmation 
of what he wrote. 

Truth, in her narrations, resorts to no oaths, expletives, 
or attestations; her language is simple, her communica- 
tions are yea, yea, and nay, nay. The asseverations of 
Jefferson weaken rather than strengthen his declarations. 
They awaken doubts of his sincerity. Accordingly, one 
is not surprised to find in his life and writings, exhibitions 
of the opposite quality. Some of them we mention. 

1. He received Lafayette cordially, with protestations of 



164 NOTES ON 

gratitude and friendship. Very soon thereafter, he wrote 
that the Frenchman had a " Canine thirst for popularity ;" 
— tli is in a letter to Madison. 

2. He styled kings "human lions, tigers, and mam- 
moths," not once, but several times during his writings. 
On April 6th, 1790, he pronounced Louis XVI. " A prince, 
the model of Royal excellence," and otherwise eulogized 
him. He also praised Alexander I., of Russia, almost 
fulsomely, in a letter addressed to him in 1805. 

3. He more than once expressed a wish to " extirpate 
from creation" the royal lions, tigers, and mammoths afore- 
said, whom he sometimes transformed into "vermin." 
Yet the letter to the Czar, above mentioned, thus closes: 
" By monuments of such offices, may your life become an 
epoch in the history of the condition of men, and may He 
who called it into being for the good of the human family, 
give it length of days and success, and have it cdivays in his 
holy keeping." This letter w T as not called forth by the 
demands of hospitality, diplomacy, or gratitude for some 
great national assistance, such as that rendered us by France, 
hue was Jefferson's spontaneous tribute to one of the 
" imperial vermin." 

4. When he quitted the gubernatorial chair of Virginia, 
he solemnly expressed his fixed resolution never to return 
to public life. The very next year, he accepted an office 
under the general government, and was afterwards, succes- 
sively Minister at the court of Versailles, Secretary of State, 
Vice-President, and President for two terms. 

5. On May 14th, 1794, he wrote Washington, "I cherish 
tranquillity too much to suffer political things to enter my 
mind at all." In the following December, he penned that 
letter to Madison, in which he rails at the President for 
his expressed disapprobation of the Democratic societies. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 165 

This letter reveals Jefferson's familiarity with public 
affairs, and his profound interest in the " things" to which 
he professed entire indifference, as well as the undiminished 
intensity of his political feelings, for he therein designates 
the Senate as the " Augean herd." 

6. In the letter last mentioned, dated December 28th, 
1794, are found these words, " I would not give up my re- 
tirement for the empire of the universe." In less than twelve 
months, Jefferson was recognized by the leaders of his party 
as the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and was 
voted for as such by his party friends at the election in Octo- 
ber, 1796. The electoral votes cast for him, did not elevate 
him to the Presidency, but were numerous enough to make 
him Vice-President. This office he did not decline, and he 
soon left his retirement for an authority not quite so exten- 
sive as the empire of the universe. 

7. Only four months prior to this election, he pretended 
in a letter to Washington that he was taking no part in 
political affairs, in fact that he had an aversion to them. 
"Political conversations" wrote this ambitious man, " I 
actually dislike, and avoid, when I can without affectation." 

8. When this result of the election was ascertained, he 
wrote Mr. Adams the President-elect, that he " never 
wished any other issue " of the contest. He had consented 
to be put forward as a candidate for the Presidency, his 
party friends had voted for him, and endeavored to elect 
him ; he had watched their efforts in his behalf, he knew 
how earnestly they desired his success, but he never wished 
to be chosen, and was pleased at his and their failure. He 
was a zealous Republican, opposed to any increase of Fed- 
eral power, and fearful that we were tending towards the 
English form of government. Adams was a leading Feder- 
alist, in favor of a strong central government, and one of 



166 NOTES OX 

those most seriously afflicted with that " Anglomania " 
which so much alarmed Jefferson ; yet he was gratified by 
Adams's election, and never wished any other result. 

That Adams would doubt this astonishing statement Jef- 
erson knew, and referred therefore to his neighbors for attes- 
tation of his sincerity. He wrote : " And though I shall not 
be believed, yet it is not the less true, that I never wished 
any other (issue). My neighbors, as my compurgators, could 
aver this fact as seeing my occupations and my attachment 
to them." Does a man conscious of his own sincerity, an- 
ticipate that his statement will be disbelieved, and bring 
forward his " compurgators," before his truthfulness is 
questioned ? Not only was he glad that Adams was chosen, 
but he intimated that he would not be displeased at the re- 
election of his late opponent. Surely, more compurgation 
is needed here. 

This letter is so fine a specimen of Jefferson's episto- 
lary excellence, that it merits special attention. Though 
he states therein that "in the retired canton" wherein 
he lives, " we know little of what is passing," he is aware 
that "The public, and the public papers have been much 
occupied lately in placing us in a point of opposition to 
each other." He then says the issue of the contest was 
not known at Philadelphia on the 16th of December, the 
date of his latest advices from that city, thus leaving the 
impression that he was still ignorant of the result, but it is 
manifest from the whole letter, that he was positively in- 
formed of it. He proceeds to declare that he never wished 
any other issue. Then follows this skilful, Machiavelian 
combination of words. " It is possible, indeed, that even 
you may be cheated out of your succession by a trick 
worthy of the subtlety of your arch friend of New York, 
who has been able to make of your real friends tools for 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 167 

defeating their and your just wishes. Probably, however, he 
will be disappointed as to you ; and ray inclinations put me 
out of his reach." In this passage, Jefferson would induce 
Adams to believe that he and his friends have a right to 
expect his re-election, that he will be chosen for a second 
terra, unless Aaron Burr cheats him out of the succession, 
that the writer will not be his competitor, and will be 
gratified by his re-election. By thus addressing him, Jeffer- 
son would probably achieve the following results ; he would 
learn whether Adams desired a re-election, and his opinion 
in regard to the probability of such re-election ; he would 
ascertain whether Adams regarded Burr favorably, or un- 
favorably, and also whether the former expected the latter 
to be a candidate at the ensuing presidential election ; he 
would secure the sympathy if not the support of Adams, in 
case he did not desire a second term, and Jefferson's friends 
should bring him forward : should Adams seek a re-election, 
and Jefferson also aspire to the Presidential chair, he could 
more effectually mature his plans, and carry on his campaign, 
when the attention of his adversary was diverted from his 
movements. Finally, he would earn the favor, perhaps the 
gratitude of Adams, for use in future emergencies. 

His letter next expresses his preference for private over 
public life. "I have no ambition, " says he philosophi- 
cally, "to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office. 
.... I leave to others the sublime delights of exalted 
station." He declares that his election to the Presidency in 
the recent contest, would have been " oppressive " to him. 
He sets forth his love of retirement, and his aversion to 
high position so strongly, that a person who should read 
the letter without any knowledge of the writer, might well 
believe that he would have refused to serve, had he been 
chosen President, and wonder why he did not resign the 



168 NOTES ox 

Vice-Presidency. He proceeds to say that his " sincere 
prayer" is that Mr. Adams's administration " may be filled 
with glory and happiness " to himself, and advantage to the 
country. He concludes by assuring the President-elect that 
the writer retains for him " solid esteem," and " sentiments 
of sincere respect and attachment." This letter can be fully 
appreciated only by a careful perusal of the whole of it, 
while bearing in mind, the party and personal alienation of 
Jefferson from Adams, prior to the election. It has been 
supposed, that it was written in order that Jefferson might 
be invited to share the deliberations of the cabinet, which 
he much desired to do. This was possibly its immediate 
object, but its ulterior aim was undoubtedly much higher. 

Jefferson's repugnance to official life, and ardent love of 
retirement did not prevent him from entering«upon the 
duties of the Vice-Presidency at the appointed time, March 
4th, 1797. Before doing so, he had consulted with Mr. 
Madison, as to the proper method of using the new Presi- 
dent for the interest of the Republican party. He soon be- 
gan to intrigue for the "succession." As usual he worked 
in secret, by means of private letters. His first tentative 
missive of which we have a copy, was written to Adam's 
" arch friend " Burr, in regard to national affairs, with an 
incidental allusion to the state of the party, and its prospects 
in New York. This letter, dated June 17th, expresses 
gloomy apprehensions for the safety of free institutions 
among us, and intimates that unless the Federalists be ex- 
pelled from power, the Revolutionary war would have been 
fought in vain. He asks Burr's opinion on these subjects. 

On June 24th, he despatched a letter to Governor Rutledge 
of South Carolina, wherein he pours forth lamentations over 
the condition of affairs, and sighs for the repose of private 
life. He writes, "This is, indeed, a most humiliating state 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 169 

of things, but it commenced in 1793." . . ." We had in 1793 
the most respectable character in the universe. But matters 
have been growing worse and worse, and now, we are low, 
indeed, with the belligerents. Their kicks and cuffs prove 
their contempt ;" which, being interpreted, means " this 
humiliation has been brought upon us by the party in power. 
Don't you think, my friend, there ought to be a change?" 
He deplores the violence of political passions. " Tranquility," 
he continues, " is the old man's milk. I go to enjoy it, in 
a few days, and to exchange the roar of bulls and bears 
for the prattle of my grandchildren and senile rest." 

As we read these words we pity the gentle old man, bur- 
dened with the cares of office, and weary of the strife cf con- 
tending factions. But pity pauses, when it is suggested to 
her that these words, addressed to the Governor, are intended 
for his political brother, General Pinckney, who may possi- 
bly be one of the Federalist candidates at the next Presi- 
dential election. She is transformed into another sentiment, 
when she perceives that Jefferson's "senile rest" means 
more than his wonted activity in political manoeuvres, and 
that his letters to confidential friends evince a spirit quite 
different from that of his communication to Rutledge. In 
it there is an almost "ethereal mildness." To Mr. Madison, 
he denounced the President's first message as " inflamma- 
tory," and characterized the message, recommending that the 
country be put in a state of defence, as " insane." He calls 
the friends of the President " War Hawks," " Adamites," 
" Anglo-men ;" declares that his alleged reasons for martial 
preparations are not plausible enough "to impose upon the 
weakest mind," and arraigns the administration for " vio- 
lations of the Constitution, propensities to war, to expense 
and to a particular foreign connection." He contemptuously 
says that Mr. Adams' answers to the addresses that pour in 

12 



170 NOTES OX 

upon him are " more thrasonical than the addresses them- 
selves/' and informs Madison that the advocates of a war 
with France "talk of Septembrizing, deportation, and the 
examples of quelling sedition set by the French Executive."* 
Instead of resting contented with the prattle of his grand- 
children, he wrote a long confession of his political faith to 
Mr. Gerry; denounced the Alien and Sedition laws ; in- 
veighed against the " usurpations" of the Federal Judiciary, 
and proposed measures for checking them ; opposed the 
punishment of journalistic libellers; discussed the question 
of the impeachment of Senators; watched with keen in- 
terest the negotiations with France, and with a still keener 
interest the home political field ; prepared the very elabo- 
rate " resolutions of '98," and procured their adoption (in 
modified form) by the Legislatures of Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia; had portions of them a second time proposed to 
those Legislatures ; urged Madison, Monroe, Gerry, and the 
aged Pendleton, of Virginia, to attack Federalism or vin- 
dicate Republicanism through the press, but published not 
a line of his own production. In a word, he directed the 
operations of his party throughout the Union, and that so 
efficient, as to place it in control of the government. 

Is it possible that he, who said and did these things, is 
the same person who penned the letter of December 28th, 
1796, to Mr. Adams? It is even so. In that letter, Jeffer- 
son stated that his "sincere prayer" was that the admin- 
istration of the President-elect might " be filled with glory 
and happiness to him." Yet he used every means to assail 
and weaken that administration, and bring it into hatred 
and contempt. In that letter, he intimated to Adams that 

* The reader will bear in mind that Jefferson was Vice-President, 
when he thus disparaged the President and his friends. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 171 

he would not be displeased at his re-election. Yet he strained 
every nerve to prevent that re-election. In that letter, he 
more than intimated that he would not be Adams' com- 
petitor in the contest for the Presidency, yet he was such 
competitor. In it, he expressed strong aversion to high 
office, especially to that of President, and affirmed that he 
left "to others the sublime delights " of that exalted position, 
yet he so managed affairs that his own nomination was in- 
evitable. He did not decline when nominated, but manifested 
an earnest desire for election, notably, when the choice 
devolved upon the House of Representatives; he was 
elected, and served his term with no hint of resignation. 
The retention of the letter by Mr. Madison, to whom it 
was intrusted with discretion to retain or deliver it, does 
not all affect one's opinion of its author. 

9. On June 19th, 1796, Jefferson wrote Washington : "I 
learn that this last (General H. Lee) has thought it worth 
while to try to sow tares between you and me, by represent- 
ing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics, and in 
turbulence and intrigue against the government." He adds 
that he did not think it his duty, in case public questions 
were introduced at table, to abstain from expressing his 
opinions merely because he had been a member of the 
Cabinet. Then, to show how completely he was weaned 
from politics, he discusses "pease and clover" and the 
" Carolina drill." In this letter, Jefferson indignantly dis- 
claims all attention to political affairs, or concern in them, 
and appeals to Washington's knowledge of his character in 
confirmation of his statements; yet on the preceding April 
24th, he had written the Mazzei letter, filled with abuse and 
denunciation of his political opponents. On June 12th, 
seven days before the letter to Washington, he wrote to Mr. 
Monroe that " Congress have risen. . . . One man (the 



172 NOTES ON 

President) outweighs them all in influence over the people. 
. . . Republicanism must lie on its oars. We are com- 
pletely saddled and bridled " by the Federalists. He points 
out that there must soon be a change, and exhorts Monroe 
in the meantime to be patient. On July 10th, he again 
writes Monroe respecting the political situation. These 
three letters certainly do not evince an entire unconcern 
about political matters. When one reads them, and remem- 
bers that in October of the same year Jefferson was elected 
Vice-President, it is hard to believe, notwithstanding his 
disclaimer, that he was not " still engaged in the bustle of 
politics." 

10. Although he had slandered Hamilton, he told Mr. 
Thomas M. Bay ley that he was really the friend of Ham- 
ilton. 

11. In his letters to Aaron Burr, Jefferson professed 
esteem, regard, and friendship for him. In his secret ar- 
chives, he recorded that Burr was venal, and unworthy of 
confidence. 

12. He publicly expressed indignation mingled with 
horror against those, who wrote or spoke favorably of I he 
English Government. Privately, he wrote to John Adams 
that the " English Constitution is acknowledged to be better 
than all which have preceded it." 

13. In his Ana is this entry : " I have never done a 
single act, or been concerned in any transaction, which I 
feared to have fully laid open." This was part of an 
alleged conversation with Burr. His correspondence by no 
means substantiates this declaration. Many of his letters 
contain an injunction of secrecy, others, intimations that 
they are confidential. So anxious was he to conceal some 
of his transactions, that he did not venture to intrust com- 
munications respecting them to the mails, but retained them 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 173 

until they could be transmitted by reliable private mes- 
sengers. 

14. In writing to Washington himself, or to his known 
friends, as well as in personal intercourse with him, Jefferson 
evinced a profound admiration for the General, and seemed 
greatly pleased by his esteem and approbation. But he 
secretly intrigued against him, disparaged him in letters to 
his enemies, and, it would seem, scandalously defamed him 
through the agency of others. For fifteen years, Jefferson 
hoodwinked this renowned man, his friend and benefactor, 
who was too frank himself to suspect insincerity in others. 

15. He censured Adams and Hamilton for aspiring to 
high official position, upon the ground that such aspiration 
was a departure from those principles of equality without 
which liberty could not exist — that a man had no right 
to desire authority over other men. At the same time, he 
was secretly working and planning for his own elevation 
to power. 

16. But perhaps the strongest evidence of Jefferson's 
insincerity is to be found in the contrast between his pub- 
lic, and his private expressions of opinion concerning the 
people. During the greatest part of his life, he publicly 
asserted their incorruptible virtue; he maintained the 
wisdom of their judgment, and treated their wishes with the 
utmost deference ; he was ever on the alert to detect and 
thwart some real or imaginary infraction of their liberties; 
he loudly proclaimed the dignity and grandeur of human 
nature. In his own time, he was greeted by the multitude 
as "the people's friend;" he is, to-day, regarded as the 
apostle and champion of popular rights, and venerated as 
the " Father of American Democracy." Yet his letters to 
his intimate friends abound in sentiments concerning the 
multitude, quite opposite to those publicly expressed, and 



174 NOTES ON 

show that he really entertained a profound contempt for 
mankind. 

These letters contain repeated declarations of the decep- 
tions practiced by priests upon the people in all ages and 
countries. The assertion of these deceptions is a denial of 
the intelligence of the people. In 1785, he writes, " I con- 
sider the class of artificers as the panders of vice; the 
instruments by which the liberties of a country are gener- 
ally overturned." He complained of the ingratitude of 
the people, when they blamed his incompetency at the time 
of the invasion of Virginia, while he was Governor. 
Further evidence of his low estimate of his fellow- men is 
found in his oft expressed disbelief in the sincerity of those, 
whose political or religious opinions differed from his own ; 
in his imputing improper motives to his political opponents, 
and in his allegations that they stooped to base means to 
promote the success of their principles. 

In his letter of March 29th, 1801, to Mr. Gerry, he at- 
tributes mercenary motives to all ministers of religion, and 
to the editors of the Federal journals. He therein charges 
his leading political opponents in New England with pros- 
tituting government, religion, and justice to the promotion 
of their schemes, and with deluding the people. While 
asserting that the delusion has been greater there than else- 
where, he admits a popular political delusion throughout 
the country. This letter alone would suffice to show 
the insincerity of Jefferson's professions of regard for 
the people, and his distrust of their ability for self- 
government, since it reveals his opinion that most^of their 
political, and all their religious, leaders are mercenary, 
selfish impostors, and that the rest of the community is 
liable to be duped by these impostors. Yet in this very 
letter, he flatters the people, tells Mr. Gerry that " they 



THOMAS JEFFEESOX. 175 

will wake like Samson from his sleep, and carry away 
the gates and posts of the city," and that " you, my 
friend, are destined to rally them." If they had been 
deluded by the Federalists, why should not the Republi- 
cans practice upon them, especially as they were in the 
latter case, to be deceived for their own welfare? On 
January 16th, 1787, he writes to Edward Carrington, 
"Man is the only animal that devours his own kind." In 
a letter to Jedediah Morse, he alludes to the enormities of 
the French Jacobins and thus continues : " Yet these were 
men, and we and our descendants will be no more. The 
present is a case where toe are to guard against ourselves, 
not against ourselves as we are, but as we may be, for who 
can now imagine what we may become under circumstances 
not now imaginable?" In 1821, he wrote to John Adams 
" what a bedlamite is man ?" 

In a letter to Mann Page, dated August 30th, 1 795, he 
paints the upper classes as dishonest, the lower as contemp- 
tible. He says : "I have always found the rogues would 
be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion men- 
tioned by Montaigne, fourteen-fifteenths, is too strong for 
the higher orders, and for those who rising above the swinish 
multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves in the places 
of power." Mr. Jefferson's preference that the Represen- 
tatives in Congress should be chosen by the Legislatures, 
rather than by the people, has been mentioned under another 
head. Writing to an intimate friend, respecting a work called 
The Political Progress, he thus expresses himself: " They 
(this and another work) disgust me indeed by opening to my 
view the ulcerated state of the human mind. The reflections 
into which it leads us are not very flattering to the human 
species. In the whole animal kingdom, I recollect no 
family but man, steadily and systematically employed 



176 NOTES ON 

in the destruction of itself. Nor does what is called 
civilization produce any other effect, than to teach him to 
pursue the principle of the helium omnium inter omnia, 
on a greater scale, and instead of the little contests between 
tribe and tribe, to comprehend all the quarters of the 
earth in the same work of destruction. If to this we 
add, that as to other animals, the lions and tigers are 
mere lambs compared with man as a destroyer, we must 
conclude that nature has been able to find in man alone, a 
sufficient barrier against the too great multiplication of 
other animals, and of man himself." 

No enemy of popular rights, no haughty tyrant, no pro- 
fessed misanthropist, would probably place a lower estimate 
on his fellow-creatures than does this vaunted friend of the 
people, in his private letters. He believes that men are 
imbeciles, liable to be duped by every impostor; that they 
are bedlamites, perpetually engaged in the work of destroy- 
ing each other; that the upper classes are rogues; the 
lower, "a swinish multitude;'' that their state is so " ulce- 
rated " as to excite disgust. Worst of all, he sees no 
prospect of their emerging from their present degradation. 
In his opinion, civilization only enables these miserable 
beings to maim and murder on a larger scale, and " we and 
our descendants " are liable to become even such as the 
Jacobin butchers of the French Revolution. Had Jeffer- 
son never written a letter, the hollowness of his professions 
of attachment to the people might have been inferred. 
His aristocratic birth and associations, his refined tastes, 
his studious habits, his love of tranquility, his peculiar sen- 
sitiveness, all combined to preclude the possibility of his 
hearty sympathy with the rude and ignorant populace. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 177 



CHAPTER XXI. 

JEFFERSON AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

In a letter, dated January 3d, 1793, and addressed to 
James Short, he thus writes of that Revolution. " In the 
struggle, which was necessary, many guilty persons fell 
without the forms of law, and with them, some innocent. 
These I deplore as much as anybody, but I deplore them 
as I should have done had they fallen in battle. It was ne- 
cessary to use the arm of the people, a machine, not quite 
so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree. 
A few of their innocent friends met at their hands the fate 
of enemies, but time and truth will rescue and embalm 
their memories, while their posterity will be enjoying that 
liberty for which they would never have hesitated to offer 
up their lives. The liberty of the whole earth was depend- 
ing on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize 
won with so little innocent blood ?" He then states that 
his affections were wounded by the loss of some who per- 
ished in the Revolution, and continues : " Rather than it 
should have failed, I would have seen half of the earth 
desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every 
country, if left free, it would be better than it now is." 
Xot only did Jefferson entertain these senseless and atro- 
cious sentiments, but in the same letter he declared that they 
were held by ninety-nine hundreths of the people in the 
United States. So anxious was he to conceal from his fel- 
low-citizens the contents of the letter, in which this shock- 
ing allegation is made, that he more than once mentioned 



178 .NOTES ON 

to Mr. Short its private nature, and caused it to be sent 
through the Spanish legation. 

During the Reign of Terror in France, the painter, David, 
wished to have the number of daily executions increased. 
It is related, that in communicating this wish to the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal, he employed metaphorically an expres- 
sion familiar to the votaries of his own beautiful art, and 
said with fiendish humor : " We must grind in a little more 
red." Collot d'Herbois, during the orgie of blood at Lyons, 
slew, in one day, fifteen hundred of his fellow-creatures. 
Marat, the tawny tyrant, whom Charlotte Corday smote to 
death, recommended the slaughter of 270,000 human vic- 
tims, in order to insure the triumph of liberty. Another 
friend of liberty, equality, and fraternity, proposed to mount 
the guillotine on wheels, so as to expedite the work of death. 
We shudder at these inhuman deeds, and execrate the 
savages who performed or proposed them. What then 
shall be thought of Jefferson, who rather than the French 
Revolution should have failed, would have seen half the 
earth made desolate, nay, would have been content to have 
but two persons left in each country ? 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 179 



CHAPTER XXII. 

EFFECTS OF HIS LIFE AND DOCTRINES. 

" The evil that men do lives after them." Many of the 
ills that now afflict the body politic, have sprung from the 
life and writings of Jefferson. One of his theories, brooded 
over by the spirit of that State Sovereignty fanatic, John 
C. Calhoun, brought forth the two abortions, nullification, 
and secession, and drenched the land in fraternal blood. 
Another, preached and applied by unscrupulous men, 
greedy for popularity, has unfurled the flag of repudiation 
in eight states of the Union ; has fixed the stigma of finan- 
cial dishonor upon the venerable " Mother of presidents;" has 
so perverted and blinded another great State, that, though 
rich and abundantly able to discharge all her obligations, 
she sent forth agents to compound with her creditors, and 
squander in useless expeditions funds that should have 
been expended in payment of her debts. These agents 
quartered themselves at the best hotels, " fared sumptuously 
every day," and, bewitched by the hag that had corrupted 
their State, into the delusion that they were engaged in a 
laudable business, with heads erect and self-satisfied air, 
announced that the proud Commonwealth, which they repre- 
sented, had magnanimously consented to return to her 
helpless creditors a little more than one-half of the money, 
that they loaned her on the security of her honor. 

Jefferson's political philosophy awakened a desire for 
power in the meanest individuals. He and his partisans 
taught that there was not only " a universal right, but a uni- 



180 NOTES ON 

versal capacity to govern. Advantages of education and 
morals were denied, and to fill an inferior place in society 
was the result not of an inferior ability, but of less courage 
and weaker purpose." The drunken and ribald Paine 
was adduced to show that infidelity and insubordination 
opened a short road to distinction. To Jefferson mainly 
we owe it, that public stations of trust and responsibility are 
often occupied by the incompetent and the unworthy ; that 
the sacred interests of education are frequently confided to 
ignorant and unprincipled men ; that demagogues ride 
triumphantly to places of distinction, and that political 
corruption prevails in the land. " To him mainly we owe 
it, that the hireling of party finds reason for the denial of 
justice in the opinions of the applicant ;" that so little respect is 
entertained for our legal tribunals; that a pure and venerable 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was ridiculed, taunted, 
and denounced for his opinion in the Dred Scott case ; 
that three Justices of the same Court have been repeatedly 
charged with disregarding law while members of the Elec- 
toral Commission, and deciding according to their political 
predilections; that any contemptible scribbler is at liberty, 
unrebuked, to criticise and declare void the decisions of the 
most learned and august tribunal, and that he is often 
applauded for the exercise of that liberty. 

Are these things so? Has the judicial ermine been 
dragged in the mire of partisan politics? Has the title of 
Judge, formerly so revered, been almost shorn of honor? 
Has one Judge been shot in Kentucky, by a litigant whom 
his interpretation of the law displeased? Has one been 
killed in Texas for a similar reason, and have other minis- 
ters of justice in that State been threatened with a like fate, 
unless certain anticipated decisions are satisfactory ? All 
this, though shameful, is scarcely surprising, for the man 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 181 

whom the people delight to honor, from whose lips they 
gladly receive instruction, and who is the political oracle 
of many, denounced some of the rulings of Chief Justice 
Marshall, and asserted that they encouraged treason and pro- 
tected traitors ; pardoned one or more convicts, not because 
he believed they had not committed the offences charged, 
but because he deemed unconstitutional the law under 
which they were convicted ; declared that he would not be 
guided in his official actions by the decisions of the 
Supreme Court, and most offensively styled the Federal 
judiciary, "A corps of sappers and miners, working under- 
ground, to undermine the foundations of our confederate 
fabric." 

Is sedition fostered to the overthrow of the law ? Is armed 
resistance to constituted authority regarded as a legitimate 
method of securing the redress of real or imaginary griev- 
ances? Are " strikes," attended with intimidation and vio- 
lence, winked at and encouraged ? Is a riot a frequent 
means of obtaining an increase of wages? Is a powerful 
combination, obstructing by force and arms the great 
avenues of trade and travel, and creating a panic in every 
department of business, but a trivial affair? Is a mob, 
usurping the functions of the legally appointed officers, and 
ruthlessly hanging in hot blood the innocent and the guilty, 
too often with shocking cruelty, mildly condemned, or half 
approved, instead of being universally denounced ? Did 
one of these blind agents of popular vengeance, at the very 
doors of a Court-House, tear from the custody of the sheriff 
ten men and murder them ? Have these incidents of a half- 
civilized society, gradually extended themselves from our 
new Western communities, where the machinery of govern- 
ment is yet but imperfect, to the older States where all the 
appliances for the lawful punishment of crime are found in 



182 NOTES ON THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

full operation? Are the participants in these unlawful 
and demoralizing outbreaks seldom punished? For this 
lamentable state of affairs, the responsibility, in great part, 
rests upon him who taught that rioters should be lightly 
dealt with; that they should generally be pardoned and 
pacified. 

In a word, the life, the doctrines, and the extraordinary 
influence of Thomas Jefferson have done more than the 
life, doctrines and influence of any other individual, living 
or dead, to produce and foster the restlessness, the self- 
assertion, the restiveness under parental control, the dimin- 
ished reverence for all that is sacred and venerable, the 
contempt of lawful authority, human and Divine, the 
spirit of insubordination, the tendency to turbulence, that 
now exist among us, filling thoughtful minds with gloomy 
apprehensions in regard to the future of our country. 
Verily, " The evil that men do lives after them." 



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